The Bridge Alliance emerged in 2015, sparked by a shared vision among leaders of the movement once known as cross-partisan.
At the time, many pro‑democracy efforts were working in parallel—siloed, earnest, committed, but lacking a collective identity. Our founding mission was plain but ambitious: to help the movement see itself, to recognize that it was part of a larger, interconnected effort to strengthen civic culture and democratic institutions.
From the beginning, we were optimistic and hopeful. We believed that by supporting collaboration, resource sharing, and public engagement, we could lay the basis for a durable, pluralistic, pro‑democracy constituency. We imagined an umbrella group that could support democracy innovators and improve their impact.
And over the years, we did have successes—many of them. The wider democracy ecosystem grew in reach, creativity, and ambition. But eleven years later, after listening again to Bob Seger’s 1979 classic Against the Wind, I found myself musing on the long road my colleagues and I have traveled.
Our country feels more fractured and divisive than ever. The ability to find common ground—let alone work together to solve the serious problems facing our nation—feels even more elusive than it did a decade ago. Yet amid these very challenges, there have been times when unlikely partnerships and local communities have come together to close divides and unite people. It is those times that remind us that progress is still possible.
As I listened to Seger’s song, certain lines felt uncomfortably close to the state of our democracy in 2026, and to my individual journey:
There are moments when I, too, “wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then.”
And more often than not, it feels as though “we were runnin’ against the wind.”
As “the years rolled slowly past,” the dream we held in 2015 sometimes feels “further from my home.” The turbulent world of American democracy today seems to be “moving eight miles a minute for months at a time.”
Now, at 78, I am still running against that wind, still questioning whether it is time to seek shelter or if the work calls me to keep pressing on.
What has gone wrong? What must we carry with us, and what must we leave behind, as we move ahead?
Yes, I’m older now, and still runnin’ against the wind.
But here is a truth engraved deep in me: democratic renewal will not come from my generation. It will be born from the courage, creativity, and moral imagination of young people determined to build something better than what they inherited. In this next generation, I see remarkable strengths: the ability to adjust quickly, fluency with digital tools, and a different perspective that questions the status quo. Their openness to new ideas, steady commitment to inclusion, and talent for connecting across boundaries are exactly what our democracy needs. These are more than mere tools for a new age—they are the very qualities that give me hope.
I am not oblivious to the skepticism that hangs in the air. Many of my friends and associates insist the system can never change, that all this work is a noble but futile exercise. But even after all these years of running against the wind, I reject that cynicism. History itself offers a quiet rebuttal. Our Founding Fathers were considered idealists by some, and yet the Constitution they designed has endured for more than two centuries. Renewal has always begun with those who refuse to believe that decline is inevitable.
So my message to young leaders is simple and urgent.
Prove the skeptics wrong.
Demonstrate that a better way exists. Prove that moral courage is not simply a relic of the past, but a potent tool your generation can wield to shape the nation’s future.
Every major advance in our nation’s history began when a new generation refused to accept the limits handed to them. Our founders felt it. Lincoln’s generation felt it. The suffragettes felt it. The civil rights movement felt it.
Your generation can do the same by insisting that our democracy live up to its promise. If you choose to step forward, you won’t be running against the wind. You’ll be running with history at your back for a country that needs the direction you can set.
Your voice and action matter. The future starts with the choice you make today, insisting that our democracy will rise to meet this moment.
David Nevins is the publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
