A New National Narrative

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Talk more about community. It’s an increasingly popular concept among change makers, but would it really affect the political landscape?

Oh, it totally changes it. There are fewer hot buttons that can be pushed by political candidates that hit code words for racist or classist or religious difference. Why was the “greatest generation” of Americans so great? Because it was a real community. The people who lived at that time went from being bankers to being street people. They lived through the Depression. They lived through the war. When you sit in a foxhole with people who don’t look like you, are you going to tell them they can’t eat next to you or live next to you when you get home? No. It’s the shared experiences that make us Americans first.

That war also informed how America approached the world stage, for better and for worse. How must we reshape our global vision in the wake of Iraq and Afghanistan?

Future generations are going to live in a multipolar world. There are going to be three or four, maybe five, major centers of power that will, over time, be more and more equal economically. And we have only 6 percent of the populace.

Part of the classic American Dream is that we’re the leaders of the world, the modern-day Romans. The new dream: We should be first among equals, the leading nation but not the dominant nation. We should lead by listening some of the time; we do that poorly now. We should lead by forming more genuine partnerships; lead by our values, our ideas, and our diplomatic skills; lead by retaining enough military strength to remain a force. As a nation, we want to be first among several leaders.

It seems that we’re at a truly pivotal moment.

I would put it this way: We can’t afford to waste another decade. If we do, the consequences will be dire. We’re not going to dig out of where we are overnight, but a decade is the outside we have. If we don’t move, we’ll pivot in the wrong direction. And we might not ever recover ourselves.

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