Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
Debilyn Molineaux is a visionary, storyteller, innovator and entrepreneur. Her life’s purpose is bringing about a thriving, just and healthy democratic republic in the United States. She launched the latest expression of her work, American Future, in late 2023, noting that imagination lays the tracks for the reality train to follow.
Unleashing Americans’ imagination about the future we want is the antidote to the malaise left by the conflict profiteers.
As a pioneer in the democracy ecosystem, Molineaux also offers consulting services to nonprofits, philanthropists, corporate leaders and foundations. She has co-founded or led initiatives over her 20-plus-year career to reach millions of Americans. Empowering her fellow citizens and scaling the work of her fellow leaders continue to be Debilyn’s passion and mission. Her actions help nurture and drive the large-scale collective action that moves our democracy forward.
Debilyn has initiated, partnered and advised on a multitude of big ideas:
- American Future, to add everyday people’s voices to the future narrative.
- Bridge Alliance, where hundreds of organizations became a pro-democracy ecosystem.
- National Week of Conversation, to provide a central annual event that promotes healthy engagement instead of toxic division.
- Living Room Conversations, to provide do-it-yourself conversation guides for understanding people with differences.
- Inter-Movement Impact Project, to connect several aspects of democracy work together.
- The Fulcrum, a news platform that covers democracy reform efforts at state and national levels.
- Bridging Movement Alignment Council, a network of more than 500 "bridging divides" organizations.
- JEDI Fellows (DEI initiative), to assist the pro-democracy ecosystem be representative using a four-fold diversity model (ideological, generational, gender and race/ethnicity representation) of the United States.
She brings a big idea or vision to reality by:
- Employing deep listening for underlying assumptions, blind spots and hidden assessments.
- Guiding purposeful conversations to ground dreams into action plans.
- Networking with people, sources and ideas that can be additive or collaborative to your idea.
- Challenging conventional wisdom and channeling missing voices.
- Communicating diplomatically, especially on tough topics.
I had the wonderful opportunity to interview Molineaux in June for the CityBiz “Meet the Change Leaders” series. Watch to learn the full extent of her democracy reform work:
The Fulcrum interviews Debilyn Molineaux, President & CEO, Bridge Alliancewww.youtube.com
A view of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 25, 2026. President Donald Trump jolted Republicans during a fiery appearance at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, scrapping a housing bill signing ceremony and clashing behind closed doors with a party rebel who challenged him over the Iran war. Trump had been expected to sign the bipartisan housing.
Only Trump doesn’t care about housing
It was August 15, 2024. Then candidate Donald Trump stepped out of his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club’s columned clubhouse to a gaggle of reporters. He was flanked by tables of groceries and signs showing the rising cost of food. Also on one of the tables was a dollhouse, meant to represent the equally alarming rise in housing prices.
It was a speech about the economy, the single most important issue of the 2024 election cycle, full of promises that went right to the heart of Americans’ anxieties. While former President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris were contorting themselves to posture a good economy that just needed more time to recover from the pandemic, Trump was preying on voters’ very real fears of unaffordable gas, groceries, and homes. It was obviously a winning message.
In that speech, Trump promised, “We’re going to open up tracts of federal land for housing construction. We desperately need housing for people who can’t afford what’s going on now.”
As of mid-2023, there had been a housing shortage of nearly four million homes, according to the National Association of Realtors. Americans all over the country were either priced out of buying new homes due to low inventory, trapped in their existing homes by sky-high mortgage rates, or facing exorbitant rent hikes thanks to corporate investors buying up rental properties. Americans needed help, and Trump promised it.
Cut to March of 2026, when Trump reportedly told House Speaker Mike Johnson, “No one gives a sh*t about housing.”
That kind of thinking may explain why Trump this week suddenly announced he was canceling a signing ceremony for the bipartisan “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act,” a housing bill co-sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott that passed the House 358-32 and was approved in the Senate on Monday.
Trump instead demanded Congress pass the SAVE America Act, his controversial election grievance bill that doesn’t have enough Republican support to get passed in the Senate.
It’s just the latest in a line of policy self-owns where Trump has seemingly intentionally made life more difficult for Republicans hoping to keep their majority. Despite midterm elections occurring in the midst of a blistering economy and an unpopular war, they were surely hoping the housing bill would give them something — anything — to brag about when they returned home to their districts.
And very much to the contrary, Americans do give a sh*t about housing. According to a recent survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a whopping 79% say the cost of housing is extremely or very important to them. Eighty-three percent say Congress should take action on the issue — like it just did. Eighty-nine percent say the House and Senate need to work together to pass affordable housing legislation — like they just did. And 63% say they would be more likely to vote for a lawmaker if they helped pass legislation to build more affordable homes and lower housing costs — like they just did.
There aren’t many issues that unite Americans like housing does, and very few bipartisan policy wins Congress can point to, and yet, Trump is holding that bill hostage in order to get his pet project — which doesn’t even have the support of his own party — pushed through.
If you’re trying to make sense of something so nonsensical, as I’m sure many Republican lawmakers are, it’s certainly sad but not actually all that complicated. Trump said what he needed to get reelected and then promptly abandoned his promises in order to pursue his own self-interests, even if those interests are bad for Republicans and bad for voters.
That’s just the kind of guy he is.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.