Why do local and state elections matter, and how can voters be sure that their voices are being represented in the lawmaking process? We open the third season of Democracy Decoded with an overview of democracy at the state and local level, and how we can ensure that all citizens can have their voices heard.
This episode is from the Democracy Decoded podcast as a part of The Democracy Group.
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After the Trump administration upended the world’s largest foreign aid provider last year, terminating thousands of programs and firing nearly all of its staff, its plan for the agency was clear: Eliminate it entirely.
But because it is a congressionally created agency, President Donald Trump needed lawmakers’ permission to do so. So this year, Trump officials asked Congress for permission to shutter the U.S. Agency for International Development and dramatically reduce federal spending on food, medicine and lifesaving work around the world.
Congress said no. Lawmakers, who hold the government’s purse strings and have oversight of federal agencies, wanted USAID to remain, even in its diminished form. They detailed precisely how much the State Department should spend on foreign aid and for what, including $9.4 billion on global health to treat and prevent maladies like HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, and more than $5 billion on emergency humanitarian aid. They also insisted on regular, detailed reports about how the administration was spending the money.
Trump signed the bill, enshrining their orders into law.
Now, eight months into the fiscal year, Trump officials are failing to follow many of those orders, ProPublica has found. Officials have delayed spending on global health, have not issued funds for some projects and have labeled money destined for humanitarian aid as “unallocated” to control how it can be spent, according to a ProPublica review of government records and interviews with legal experts, current and former government employees, and members of Congress. And when lawmakers have asked about their actions, officials often have not responded.
The White House and Congress have been battling over federal spending since Day 1 of the Trump administration, setting up a constitutional crisis — a breakdown of the division of power among the three branches of the federal government, according to several legal scholars.
Nowhere has that crisis been more visible than with foreign aid. Last year, the administration took the unprecedented step of gutting USAID, terminating thousands of aid programs and letting funding expire, all without permission from Congress. Lawmakers did little to stop it.
Now, in defying Congress on foreign aid that Trump himself agreed to spend, the administration is quietly escalating the battle.
“It is a huge grab of power from the president, taking powers away from Congress,” said David Super, a professor of law and economics at Georgetown University and a leading scholar on administrative and constitutional law.
USAID was created by Congress decades ago as a means of promoting American diplomacy and soft power around the world. As ProPublica previously reported, when Trump officials dismantled the agency last year, stopping payments on thousands of lifesaving programs that provided food, medicine and other supplies to impoverished nations, many people died, including children.
Even with USAID in shambles, Congress has made clear that it expects the administration to continue providing foreign aid — in some cases, at nearly the level it did in previous years.
“It’s proof that there is still broad, bipartisan support for America showing up in the world, helping people and working with our allies and partners on shared challenges, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it directly benefits us,” said Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, the ranking member of the Senate committee with oversight of foreign aid funds. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the committee’s chair, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
But the administration has taken a variety of steps to thwart Congress’ directives. The Office of Management and Budget, run by Russell Vought, was instrumental in blocking the spending of aid money last year. This year, it has labeled both humanitarian aid and global health money as “unallocated,” meaning the OMB must approve how it is spent.
Legal scholars say such moves, and the delayed spending by the State Department, likely violate the law. Foreign aid is a prime example of why Congress made it illegal for administrations and agencies to slow-walk such funds, said Bobby Kogan, an OMB adviser under former President Joe Biden currently with the Center for American Progress. “If you spend no money for a year and all the clinics close, then those people die,” he said.
The State Department has made little effort to spend some foreign aid money that Congress earmarked for specific purposes, including family planning, neglected diseases and nutrition, according to government staff and budget documents.
And programs have been given fewer dollars, even when Congress has kept funding steady. That includes the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the hallmark HIV program credited with saving 26 million lives around the world.
Administration officials are also spending on foreign aid at a much slower rate than they had in recent years, according to an analysis of federal funding data shared with ProPublica by Aid on the Hill, an advocacy group created by former USAID employees, although the State Department disputes its conclusions. Another group published a similar analysis last week.
Where Trump officials have made plans to spend funds, it’s often spurred outrage. Under the new America First Global Health Strategy, Trump officials are signing bilateral deals with poor countries, asking for access to health data as a condition for receiving lifesaving medications the U.S. once donated.
Jeremy Lewin, a 29-year-old lawyer who came into government via Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency with no prior humanitarian experience, is in charge of foreign aid. He has said that this new strategy will not only save countless lives, but also reform the aid sector and reduce dependence on U.S. funding.
Since last July, Lewin has been “performing the duties” of undersecretary for foreign assistance and humanitarian affairs, a position that must be approved by Congress, though the administration has yet to nominate him or anyone else to the job.
But he rarely, if ever, meets with career staff and doesn’t share information about his plans, even with the people who are expected to carry them out, according to six current and former career officials. Lewin insists that he approve even routine payments, creating a stranglehold on funding and information.
And all the while, Trump appointees have failed to answer basic questions from Congress about what they are doing. Letters from lawmakers have gone unanswered and required reports unfiled.
To understand the administration’s compliance with congressional mandates and federal law, ProPublica reviewed administration documents, including agreements, memos, and internal communications, and spoke with dozens of current and former government officials, congressional staff, and international experts in global health and humanitarian aid. Many people spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal from the administration.
In response to a list of detailed questions about the concerns, a State Department spokesperson who declined to be named said they would continue to follow the president’s direction on foreign aid spending. “We are not withholding any funds appropriated to, or available to, State,” they said. “If additional funds are made available to State, we will work to obligate them consistent with legal requirements and Administration priorities.”
They said officials have regularly briefed Congress and that Lewin had recently spent four hours discussing foreign assistance. They also said they have “reduced by 80% the number of outstanding reports and letters” since Trump retook office.
“We are working with Congress to spend appropriated balances and find the right future-appropriated level for global health,” the spokesperson said.
In response to a series of detailed questions about this story, OMB spokesperson Rachel Cauley said, “This is patently false,” adding that “USAID was a weaponized government agency.” She did not respond to a follow-up question asking what was false.
After nearly all of USAID’s employees were fired and the majority of its programs closed down last summer, the agency’s remnants were transferred to the State Department. Despite repeated promises from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that lifesaving aid would continue, the State Department began winding down many of the remaining programs earlier this year.
And staff have been working with a severely constricted budget; officials gave them just half of the available money for PEPFAR, said Dr. Mike Reid, who was the program’s chief scientific officer until he left earlier this year over concerns about how the program is being run. Of the $9.4 billion for global health spending for the State Department that Trump signed into law earlier this year, Congress earmarked about $4.6 billion for PEPFAR. But staff say it’s unclear how much of that they will be allowed to spend.
Congress also explicitly directed the State Department to spend pots of money on family planning ($524 million), nutrition ($165 million) and neglected tropical diseases ($109 million), according to the bill. According to a review of government records and two people with knowledge of the department’s activities, State Department officials have made little or no effort to spend from those pots.
In response, a State Department spokesperson said it has “continued to obligate and spend every dollar appropriated for global HIV/AIDS programs” and “we continue to implement life-saving care in global health priority areas, including HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and maternal and child health.”
They added: “The State Department has been in the process of slowly replacing old carry-over USAID grants with new State Department grants and contracts which have fresh funds, new terms and conditions, and better align with the new America First foreign assistance strategy.”
Global health programming in general is moving at a much slower rate than it did previously, according to the Aid on the Hill analysis of federal funding data. Of the more than $9 billion that Congress told the Trump administration to spend on global health last year, the administration had by the end of this March obligated just $190 million, 5% of what was spent on average in that period in the five years before Trump returned to office. Typically, officials would have obligated about half of the money by then. Another advocacy organization, Health Security Policy Academy, published an analysis last week that drew a similar conclusion.
The State Department said it “cannot and will not” verify any independent analysis, but disagreed with the figures, saying that it has “approved and implemented spending” for more than $7.5 billion to align with the bilateral agreements and disaster response. “You either have vastly outdated numbers or are simply mistaken,” it said, but would not elaborate.
The agreements signed with nations around the world, a centerpiece of the State Department’s foreign aid policy, will in many cases involve sending funds directly to those governments, some of which have been mired in corruption scandals. But the specifics of the programs are still being determined, and the funding has yet to flow.
Meanwhile, Lewin has been increasingly leaning on large international organizations to deliver aid once managed by USAID employees.
Earlier this year, Lewin funneled $3.8 billion to a small arm of the United Nations, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, quadrupling the budget of the agency.
Trump has frequently criticized the U.N. as ineffective. But after nearly all of USAID’s staff was fired, the skeleton crew at the State Department doesn’t have the capacity or expertise to manage so much humanitarian aid themselves, according to a dozen people familiar with the new system.
The agreement with OCHA, a copy of which was reviewed by ProPublica, also does not allow the U.S. to independently audit the funds, though the U.N. agreed to run a pilot project for greater internal oversight.
Eri Kaneko, OCHA’s spokesperson, said the agency has worked quickly since December to disburse funds for “the most urgent and life-threatening needs” and that U.N. entities are “fully committed to the highest standards of accountability and oversight.”
The U.S. has been the largest donor to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a multilateral organization that provides medicines and prevention measures to millions of people around the world, since its inception. Lewin recently announced an expanded partnership with the fund to provide HIV prevention across Africa. But the Trump administration last year withheld payments pledged under the Biden administration, forcing the fund to reduce the amounts it gave to nations.
So in this year’s spending bill, Congress directed the State Department to make good on its pledges, issuing specific instructions to Rubio on what to pay and when, and telling him to make those contributions “in a timely manner.”
That hasn’t happened.
A State Department spokesperson told ProPublica that “all current funding obligations have been met.” But according to a board member for the Global Fund, congressional staff and Friends of the Global Fight, an organization that advocates for the fund in the U.S., the administration should contribute another $661 million.
“The State Department is underfunding the Global Fund,” Schatz said. “It’s out of compliance with congressional appropriations.”
When the senator asked about the funding during Rubio’s recent testimony to Congress, Rubio said, “I think that will move shortly, very quickly.”
During previous administrations, once Congress passed laws to approve federal spending, the money flowed through the OMB, which in turn parceled out the funds to designated agencies, making sure they didn’t spend the funds too quickly or too slowly.
Under Trump, the OMB, led by Vought, has repeatedly blocked funds approved by Congress from going to agencies using legally dubious maneuvers, experts in federal spending and constitutional law told ProPublica.
As ProPublica has chronicled, Vought takes an expansive view of presidential power and has moved to give the executive branch dramatically greater authority to not spend legally appropriated money. Foreign aid has been a clear focus; after USAID was razed last year, Vought was made acting administrator and tasked with overseeing the closeout of the agency. Eric Ueland, a Vought deputy at the OMB, is currently performing those duties.
The OMB currently has labeled more than $500 million in global health money as “unallocated,” according to its own data, which makes it impossible for the State Department to spend without first going through the OMB. It had also labeled most of the humanitarian aid money this way, but began releasing some of those funds in May. By June 11, the OMB had released all of that money to the State Department.
Several people inside and outside the government told ProPublica they fear that the administration is withholding the funds because it is planning not to spend them at all. They have good reason to be concerned: That’s exactly what Trump did last year.
In 2025, the administration clawed back some $13 billion in foreign aid that Congress had passed into law, some of it by using a maneuver widely understood by legal experts to be illegal.
That maneuver, which Vought calls a “pocket rescission,” essentially asks Congress to cancel funds so late in the fiscal year that there isn’t enough time for them to be spent if Congress says no. The Government Accountability Office, Congress’ watchdog, has said pocket rescissions are illegal, and several constitutional scholars told ProPublica the move violates the Impoundment Control Act. That law, passed in 1974 in the wake of disputes with President Richard Nixon, restricts the president’s authority to withhold, or impound, funds approved by Congress.
A federal court initially blocked the maneuver as part of ongoing lawsuits related to the dismantling of USAID. But the administration appealed to the Supreme Court, which issued an emergency ruling split along ideological lines that allowed the clawback to continue, though it did not rule on the merits.
The GAO has standing to take legal action on a pocket rescission. Edda Emmanuelli Perez, GAO’s general counsel, told ProPublica that her office was continuing to review potential impoundments and monitoring ongoing litigation, and that it has not made a decision to file any lawsuits at this time.
While there are still nearly four months left in this fiscal year, career officials and legal experts say another rescission — legal or not — would further erode Congress’ power of the purse, threatening the U.S. democracy.
“If that’s going to be a regular occurrence, then we have a real fundamental threat to the rule of law,” said Cerin Lindgrensavage, a former Justice Department lawyer who works for Protect Democracy, a nonprofit that fights against authoritarianism. “Congress has said spend the money, and the president doesn’t want to. The question is, who wins? Under the law, Congress is supposed to win. Right now, the president is.”
Budget watchers say there are concerning signs that the administration plans to withhold more funds.
In April, the OMB announced to Congress that it was withholding funds earmarked for global health to pay the hefty bills for severance fees and other costs for the thousands of USAID programs Trump officials terminated last year.
OMB officials told lawmakers they were setting aside $19 billion to cover those costs, though they anticipated the total would be “substantially” less. (Internal documents reviewed by ProPublica say the figure doesn’t include the cost of the litany of lawsuits associated with the closures — or the dozens of new hires and other agency operations needed to process them.)
The bulk of that money came from unspent funds for the canceled programs and other unobligated dollars from previous years. But $3.2 billion came from funds earmarked by Congress for global health and development programs that Trump signed into law in 2025. If it’s not obligated by the end of September, that money will expire and can no longer be spent.
Democratic lawmakers were incensed by the OMB’s decision. In a letter to Trump officials, senators called it an “appalling admission of waste of U.S. taxpayer dollars” and demanded that the administration use the $3.2 billion as directed, “consistent with the law.” They asked for a response by May 8. As of June 16, lawmakers had not received one.
Asked about the funds during the recent Senate hearing, Rubio claimed they were under the purview of the OMB. Schatz pointed out that Rubio had moved all foreign aid under the State Department and had just wrestled some of that money away from the OMB to respond to an Ebola outbreak. “It also demonstrates you are perfectly capable of getting money released from those closeout funds if you wish,” he told the secretary. “Ebola is an urgent priority, but so is malaria, so is TB and so is HIV/AIDS.”
“Proposing a rescission is a Presidential authority, and we will follow President Trump’s direction as to any future rescissions,” the State Department spokesperson told ProPublica. “We are currently planning to obligate all appropriated balances, consistent with law.”
“A Huge Grab of Power”: Trump Is Defying Congress on Foreign Aid was originally published by ProPublica and is republished with permission.
Americans are exhausted by the news. National surveys show that nearly two-thirds of adults feel “worn out” by the amount of news they encounter, and a large share now actively avoid it — a number that rises to nearly half among young adults. The reasons are consistent: the news feels too negative, too overwhelming, and too hopeless. Many say it affects their mood, increases their stress, and leaves them feeling powerless.
I see this in my own life. Family members, friends, and former colleagues who once followed the news closely now turn away from television and cable coverage altogether. My own sister in Virginia is among the statistics. She tells me the news cycles became unbearable — a constant stream of “what is” and “what should be,” delivered with urgency but without clarity, context, or any sense of what might actually help. The result was emotional exhaustion, not understanding. She is not alone.
Recently, I met a woman who is living with three other adults in a single apartment because the cost of housing has become impossible to manage on her own. She explained that even if she could find a place she could technically afford, the utilities, food, insurance, and basic living expenses would push her past the breaking point. Her story is not unusual. It is the quiet reality for millions of Americans who are working, struggling, and still falling behind — and who see little in the news that reflects their daily lives or offers any sense of what might change.
Americans know the problems. The news cycles remind us constantly, and our circumstances remind us every day. We don’t need another headline to tell us that housing is unaffordable, healthcare is out of reach, or groceries cost more than they did last month. We live it. What we rarely see are the solutions — or even the attempts at solutions — that could help us understand what might change. Citizens deserve reporting that not only warns them about what threatens their well‑being, but also shows them what is being done — and what they can do — to strengthen their communities.
The late Representative John Lewis offered a moral compass for moments like this. He reminded us that, “When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak up. You have to say something; you have to do something.” The statistics speak for themselves. The question now is: what will we do?
The framers of the Constitution understood the danger of an uninformed or misinformed public, which is why they embedded the First Amendment into our founding document. By protecting a free press, they envisioned journalism as a public service — a safeguard that would help citizens see clearly, participate fully, and hold power to account. The press was never meant to be a source of constant despair; it was meant to be a conduit for understanding.
Yet today, many Americans feel the press no longer serves that purpose. They see a system that highlights conflict but rarely progress, that exposes failures but seldom examines responses, that overwhelms rather than informs. When the news becomes a source of stress instead of clarity, people disengage. And when they disengage from news, they disengage from democracy. When people tune out, they miss the very information they need to make informed decisions — and a Republic cannot function when its citizens are uninformed.
At the same time, our newsrooms do not reflect the communities they serve. Surveys of newsroom diversity show that a large majority of journalists are white. Black, Latino, Asian, and Indigenous reporters remain significantly underrepresented, especially in leadership roles. Young adults of color — who make up some of the most civically important and culturally dynamic communities in the country — rarely see themselves as storytellers, problem solvers, or trusted narrators of their own neighborhoods. When people do not see themselves in the news, they understandably question whether the news sees them.
But there is a path forward, and it begins with how we train the next generation of journalists.
We can change the way we report the news. Solutions journalism is a rigorous, evidence‑based approach to covering how people are responding to social problems — not just what’s broken, but what’s being tried, what’s showing promise, and what can be learned. Instead of asking the President to defend failures or trade blame, a solutions‑focused reporter might ask: “Mr. President, what specific evidence can you point to that your current economic policies are reducing the cost burdens Americans face in housing, food, and utilities — and what additional steps are you prepared to take if those measures are not producing the intended results?” This kind of question doesn’t invite outrage or evasion. It invites clarity. It gives the public something they rarely get: a way to understand what’s working, what isn’t, and what might come next. Research shows that solutions‑focused reporting increases audience engagement, strengthens constructive public discourse, and empowers communities by highlighting responses that can be replicated or improved.
In my own experience writing opinions, I’ve seen how readers respond when we shift from despair to possibility. People are hungry for stories that illuminate not only the challenges we face, but the people and institutions working to address them. They want reporting that helps them understand how change happens — and how they can be part of it.
Imagine a national pipeline that trains young adults — especially recent high school graduates from Black, Latino, Asian, Indigenous, and immigrant communities — to become solutions‑focused reporters. Imagine equipping them with the tools to investigate community responses to issues like housing, education, public safety, and health. Imagine giving them the mentorship, newsroom partnerships, and publication platforms they need to tell stories that strengthen civic trust rather than erode it.
Young adults are already natural observers of their communities. They see the gaps, the innovations, the quiet successes. What they lack is access: access to training, access to newsrooms, access to the belief that their voices matter in shaping public understanding. A solutions‑focused journalism program for young adults would do more than diversify the field. It would change the field. It would produce reporting that reflects lived experience, highlights community problem solvers, and offers the public a fuller picture of what is possible.
If we want to rebuild civic engagement — and strengthen democracy in the process — we need to invest in a new model of journalism training. That means creating programs that teach rigorous reporting and verification while centering evidence‑based storytelling about how communities are responding to challenges. It means building real pathways for underrepresented young adults to enter journalism, not as tokens but as contributors whose lived experience deepens the public conversation. It means retraining current journalists in solutions‑focused methods so they can examine not only what is broken, but what is being repaired — and why.
This is not about softening the news. It is about strengthening it. At a time when democracy feels fragile and trust feels scarce, we need journalism that helps people see themselves not as spectators to decline, but as participants in progress. Training a new generation of diverse, solutions ‑focused reporters is not just an investment in journalism. It is an investment in the country. And it is one we cannot afford to postpone.
Carolyn Goode is a retired educational leader and former adjunct professor. She writes about civic responsibility, democratic engagement, and the role of journalism in strengthening public understanding.
Congress should strengthen the administrative state by writing clearer laws, limiting delegated authority, and requiring periodic reauthorization of agency powers.
Congress needs to write better laws instead of dismantling the administrative state.
Debates over the administrative state focus on whether these agencies have accrued too much power. Some argue that the solution is to severely weaken or, in extreme scenarios, dismantle these federal agencies. However, the issue is not the existence of these agencies but actually how Congress writes its laws. When statutes are drafted with vague language, agencies are left to interpret the scope, and courts are forced to set the boundaries. This results in constant litigation and generally regulatory instability. If Congress actually wants a more durable and accountable regulatory system, they need to start with themselves by writing clearer laws.
Over the past century, Congress has tasked federal agencies with implementing often broad legislation to create federal rules allowing them to fill in the details. This resulted from a practical need; elected officials cannot realistically draft every single law, for instance environmental protection laws, or laws safekeeping public health.
However, in recent years, this line has become increasingly blurred, and the process has turned into more of an abdication of power instead of the proper delegation that it started with. Too often, Congress passes laws that are upheld by courts under the “intelligible principle” established in J.W. Hampton, Jr. & Co. v. United States (1928), which allows Congress to provide guiding principles for agencies to implement statutory mandates, but Congress has been using extremely broad language such as “in the public interest” or “as necessary and appropriate.” These do not clearly define the outer limits of the authority Congress is delegating. This has led to several issues, the first of which is that agencies have faced increasing litigation as courts scrutinize their actions under doctrines like the major questions doctrine, leaving agencies exposed to political blame for choices they made from unclear statutory drafting.
The solution is that Congress must put guardrails on its delegations of power. Congress should adopt a rule/law that includes two elements: a plain language statement that defines the boundaries and outer limits of the power being granted to an agency, and an automatic ten-year expiration unless Congress reauthorizes the delegation of power.
The plain language requirement would still allow for the expertise of agencies to fill in the details regarding regulations/rules, but Congress would be required to specify the scope and limit of the discretion it is transferring to the agencies. The plain language added to a bill should include essential pieces such as constraints, boundaries, or decisions the agency may make. Congress has already signaled its support for more clear government communications by passing the Plain Writing Act of 2010, which requires federal agencies use more ordinary everyday language to help everyday Americans understand the agency's public communications. Congress should hold itself to the same standard when they transfer policymaking authority.
The ten-year sunset provision forces Congress to reauthorize its delegations of power. One issue today is that authority delegated by Congress, whether to the executive or federal agencies, can be indefinite. This means that some agencies are still using authority from laws that were passed decades ago. The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938 for instance, is the main source of authority for the FDA. This law was written a long time before many of the changes that have defined the 21st century like AI-powered medical devices yet the FDA is forced to interpret and apply that nearly century-old language to regulate them. A sunset provision would fix this by requiring Congress to periodically assess whether the delegation of power to an agency remains appropriate or needs to be modified. It doesn't mean agencies would cease all operations if it isn't passed or renewed, just that a certain authority delegated by Congress for a specific function may cease.
These reforms would make it more difficult for courts to strike down regulations/rules made by agencies such as environmental protection or health rules because Congress wasn't clear where its delegation of authority ends or starts. When Congress defines the boundaries of its delegation in clear, simple, plain language, agencies will be less at risk of facing litigation regarding their rules.
Congress can strengthen, not dismantle the administrative state by reclaiming its constitutionally given authority to write the laws and define the scope of the authority it delegates. By putting guardrails back on its delegations of power, Congress will make the federal government more accountable, more transparent, and most importantly, more durable.
Luka Jacobi-Krohn is a political science student at the University of Pennsylvania. He spent the last semester as a domestic intern at Penn Washington, where he studied and wrote about federal agencies, Congress, policymaking, and their intersections.
Is America an idea or a culture? Discover how America's 250th birthday invites a deeper look at patriotism, citizenship, civic identity, and the Declaration of Independence.
When I grew up in the 90s, as ever before, it was commonplace to talk about America as a young nation. America’s precise age relative to certain European or Asian nations was never really the point; it was to suggest that America had the qualities of youth—growth, dynamism, ambition, optimism.
We still have those qualities, but as we celebrate our 250th birthday, it’s worth reflecting on what it might mean to be a middle-aged nation. Even suggesting such a notion seems vaguely unpatriotic—America, middle-aged(!), how dare you? But as many of us can attest, while it comes with new aches and pains and perhaps a keener sense of limitation, middle age is not death. It’s just maturity.
What a mature American identity might look like was a sub-theme of the Jack Miller Center’s (JMC) most recent National Summit on Civic Education. The official theme was “Words that Changed the World: America at 250,” drawing attention to the world-shaping significance of the Declaration of Independence. The power of those words and the importance of literacy as a necessary precursor to that power were echoed throughout the conference. But the question of who we are as a people lurked just behind it, as if celebrating the Declaration were to beg a more fundamental question—is America an idea or a culture?
Over the course of two hot days in May, the Summit did not shy away from this increasingly fraught question. Osagie Imasogie, of the Penn Carey Law School, offered an initial answer at a naturalization ceremony that preceded the opening lunch: “The strength of America does not come from uniformity; it comes from the ability of people of many backgrounds to unite around shared principles…principles of liberty, equality, justice, opportunity.”
Professor Allen Guelzo doubled down on creedalism in a later breakout session: “We have none of the conventional ways of defining ourselves as a nation. We do not refer back to blood and soil, to throne an altar. We define ourselves by two documents…you can become an American in 20 minutes…you embrace those truths, those inalienable rights, and you’re in.”
Jon Meacham, in a conversation with Shilo Brooks on the Old School podcast, praised the creedal element as well. Meacham, paraphrasing George Orwell, described the difference between nationalism and patriotism. “Nationalism is an allegiance to your own kind. Patriotism is an allegiance to a creed, and anyone who professes that creed, anyone who ascribes to it, can belong in a polity. Nationalism is restrictive and constrictive. Patriotism is open and vibrant.”
We are often most comfortable discussing America as an idea, and we at Jack Miller Center cherish it; it’s what our educational mission is all about. But we also know that American identity involves more than just a creed. After all, it takes not 20 minutes but often more than seven years to become a naturalized citizen, and that is not by accident. Some commitment to the nation and its people must be demonstrated. Vice President JD Vance articulated the counterpoint a couple of years ago to some controversy: “America is not just an idea. It is a group of people with a shared history and a common future. It is, in short, a nation…a homeland.”
Coming from Vance, the point is controversial. But take Vance out of the picture, and the notion that there is both a universal and a particular element to American identity is just obvious. Amy Coney Barrett, in an interview with Bari Weiss last year, said it a little differently, but the point is essentially the same: “I think America is more than an idea. I think America is its people too…the flesh and blood people who pour their lives into making that idea a reality.”
At the Summit, JMC chairman Michael Weiser explained this dimension in another way to the new citizens at the naturalization ceremony. Citizenship comes with expectations, he said, including “respect for each other’s life stories, respect for the laws of our country and community, and respect for the contribution each of us can and must make to the health and wellbeing of our shared land.” In other words, becoming one of us depends on a commitment to the flourishing of this particular community of people occupying this particular section of the globe.
American identity is both creedal and cultural, and the beauty of the Summit lay in its embrace of this duality. We sang patriotic anthems handed down to us from generations past. We waved flags. We interacted with interpreters of great historical Americans. We celebrated the things that are ours—authors like Melville, Hawthorne, and Twain—because they give voice to something peculiarly American. We did all this while fully embracing our “north star,” as Jon Meacham has called our Declaration.
Peggy Noonan, as she so often does, summed it up nicely in a lunch conversation: “What is America…it’s a creedal nation…it stands for an idea…it’s blood and soil…it’s the house I grew up in…in a way it’s all of those things.”
The genius of America is that we are “all those things.” We are all what we might call hyphenated Americans. The hyphenated American has not always been warmly embraced. Teddy Roosevelt famously said in 1915, “There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism—a hyphenated American is not an American at all.” Roosevelt meant something different, of course, referring to those who maintain allegiances to foreign countries, but there is a similar tendency today to want to simplify American identity. The genius of America is that we are not simple but complex—that we embrace the paradox of “e pluribus unum,” that we are both culture and creed.
Many groups in America can speak to a tradition of “two-ness,” Catholics, Jews, African Americans and others—what Glen Loury has described as a challenge of “how to be fully themselves and fully American.” But even the most Anglo-Protestant among us, with ancestors from the Mayflower or Jamestown, must cherish the fact that being an American never requires him or her to abandon principles of justice. As Noonan told us at the Summit, “my country right or wrong” did not originally end there but went on “…when right to be kept right, when wrong to be put right.”
The beauty of JMC’s 2026 Summit was that, in the largest sense, it recognized the complexity that so defines America, a mature view of our identity—that it contains commitments to the American people in particular and universal principles of right as laid out in the Declaration. To be a hyphenated American, in the end, and as we celebrate our 250th birthday, is just to be an American.
Thomas Kelly is senior vice president and chief program officer at the Jack Miller Center for Teaching America’s Founding Principles and History.
