This is the first entry in a series from Rich Harwood, president and Founder of The Harwood Institute. His “Enough. Time to Build.” campaign calls on community leaders and active citizens to step forward and build together.
In America today, our collective challenges are mounting. Inequities and disparities are growing, not diminishing. A lack of trust has turned into pervasive mistrust. Hope is in short supply. Meanwhile, election season rhetoric is already tearing communities apart, not building them up. And there’s a vacuum in our public square being filled by the most divisive voices.
It can feel so hard to get things done these days. Even our own allies at times create obstacles. So many of us are tired, worn down. A growing number of leaders tell me they are on the verge of giving up. In the face of all this, it’s no wonder so many community leaders have taken cover and stepped back for fear of being attacked.
The question becomes, how do we move forward together under these conditions? I believe we can only move forward by going together.
Indeed, there is a practical path forward, a way out of this mess. It’s time to call on community leaders and active citizens to declare, “Enough!” Enough hate, division and fear. Enough hopelessness. And it’s time to build together. To get moving. That’s what my new civic campaign — “Enough. Time to Build.” — is all about and it’s what we’ll be exploring in this new series here at The Fulcrum.
This campaign is moving across the country throughout 2024 and into 2025 — from California to Florida, New Mexico to Michigan, Colorado to North Carolina, and everywhere in between. Wherever we go, we’re going to highlight a new, can-do narrative from the frontlines, starting with our first event of 2024 in Flint, Mich,, on Jan. 17. Expect inspiring stories of community builders already taking action to practical steps for you to fulfill your community’s shared aspirations. We’ll also convene new virtual spaces to connect community leaders to one another and renew a sense of possibility — so no one feels that they are going it alone — alongside offering our road-tested tools for accelerating your community work.
For over 35 years, I’ve worked to transform America’s hardest hit communities. My “Turning Outward” approach to community-led, community-driven change has spread to all 50 states and 40 countries. I’ve been recruited to solve some of the most difficult problems of our time, including being called into Newtown, Conn., after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. My experience, and my reading of our country being in a truly historic moment, has convinced me that we need a distinctly civic message — not a political one — to bring us back to our shared public lives. In fact, the tens-of-thousands-strong network of community leaders we’ve built over the decades has been looking to us for this very thing.
So this election season, while I’m not running for office, I will be traveling the country to show communities a real pathway forward. Not with a utopian vision, false promises or comprehensive plans. Instead, this campaign — and the stories from communities all over this country that we’ll be telling in this new series — are meant to bring more Americans together to build. Brick by brick, neighborhood by neighborhood, community by community.
This requires that we reclaim the public square from the most divisive voices and unleash our individual and shared capacities as builders and doers. The loudest voices have a right to be heard, but they don’t have a right to dominate. We don’t need more political division and distrust, we need a civic path forward. The change people yearn for — a deeper sense of connection, belonging and dignity — is going to start in our local communities and spread from there.
I know we can create authentic hope this election season and beyond. Our five-point platform illuminates how we can begin building communities that work for all of us, not just some of us.
- The country is not where we want it to be. But we cannot wallow in despair. It’s time to build.
- There’s a vacuum in public life. The public square is dominated by the most divisive voices. It’s time for community leaders and active citizens to step forward.
- Americans are builders and doers. It’s time to unleash this capacity and go together.
- Real change always starts in local communities. Starting local is the best way to demonstrate progress and spread real change across the nation. It’s time to grow belief in one another.
- Good things are already happening in our communities. We can build on them. It’s time to accelerate and deepen these good things.
Together, we can restore our belief in one another, renew authentic hope and create the real change that our communities — and our country — so desperately need. Enough. It’s time to build.
Americans across the political spectrum have continued to ask about the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s connections among the political elite. (Angela Weiss/AFP)
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner speaks to voters at a town hall at the Elks Lodge 188 on June 7, 2026, in Portland, Maine.
McConnell and Platner both feel entitled
The two men could not be more different. One, a Republican, octogenarian, seven-term Southern senator, the other a progressive, millennial Maine oysterman who’s never spent a day in elected office.
But Mitch McConnell, the senior senator from Kentucky who’s been MIA for the past few weeks and Graham Platner, the Maine Senate candidate who’s facing calls to drop out of his race against Sen. Susan Collins, apparently do have something in common: an outsized sense of entitlement.
McConnell, who is 84 and not running for reelection, has been hospitalized for three weeks, and yet we still don’t fully know what he was admitted for or what his condition is. Per CNN, “his office has not disclosed a medical reason for the hospitalization or provided specifics on his health status beyond saying last week that he ‘continues to improve’ and ‘is working closely with his staff on Kentucky and Senate matters.’ ”
While several legislators have said they’ve talked to him and insist he sounds strong, others have said they are completely in the dark. One MAGA influencer, Laura Loomer, posted ”High level source close to the White House tells me ‘Mitch McConnell is officially brain dead. He’s not coming back.’ ”
Meanwhile, up in Maine, Platner has been artfully dodging calls from his own party to drop out of his race after several allegations of misconduct from women, including a sexual assault allegation from a former girlfriend, came to light. While Platner, who has managed to survive a Nazi-tattoo scandal, a sexting scandal, and several old tweets scandals, denies the allegations, he has not quit.
High-profile Democrats including Sens. Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer, the latter of whom had unsuccessfully hand-selected Maine Gov. Janet Mills to face Collins instead of Platner, have urged Platner to drop out, while other Dems have accused him of trying to influence the picking of his replacement.
Maine Democratic Party Executive Director Devon Murphy-Anderson released a statement Tuesday, which said in part:
“Unfortunately, Graham Platner’s team has repeatedly reached out to us in an attempt to put their thumb on the scale of what this process looks like. We have repeatedly reiterated to Graham Platner’s team that they have no role in determining our next Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate nor in determining what this process looks like.”
Both incidents show a deep lack of accountability to voters, who in one case deserve to know whether their senator is capable of performing his duties, and in another deserve a candidate who isn’t being accused of crimes, bigotry and deception.
The offensive and odious entitlement of both McConnell and Platner stands out not because it is particularly unique among today’s political class. Tom Kean, the New Jersey GOP congressman, missed more than 100 votes, only sharing after a three-month mystery absence that he was dealing with depression.
Former President Joe Biden’s Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin failed to disclose a hospitalization for prostate cancer surgery, flouting the established rules for Cabinet members and senior U.S. officials.
From Biden’s insistence on running for reelection despite his obvious cognitive and political weaknesses to Trump’s brazen flouting of laws and norms, few politicians seem to appreciate that their public service job comes with responsibilities to constituents, including transparency and honesty.
But both parties increasingly justify the chicanery, because the stakes of winning elections and keeping power are simply too high. But that’s no excuse. If we’ve learned anything over the past decade, it’s that character and accountability do, in fact, matter. And when we, the voters, stop caring about it, well, so do they.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.