Deepening America’s Democracy: Advice to President-Elect Obama

Congratulations, President-Elect Obama!  I couldn't be happier for you.  In fact, the tears were streaming down my face as I pulled the lever in the voting booth on November 4, 2008 -- a day I will remember as long as you will.

The day before, I had held for the first time my new book, Pragmatism and Social Hope (Columbia University Press, 2008).  Your campaign enacted my book's vision in wonderful ways as you traveled our country, helping people learn to speak up and listen to each other about their anxieties about the present and their deepest hopes for the future.  You focused on raising up a "we" -- what John Dewey called "a public" -- that would have tremendous energy, a lot of good ideas, and the shared determination to help our country regain its balance in the world, so that together, we can fulfill America's greatest potentials.  Yes, we can!

Now that you've got our nation's attention and the opportunity to make some important changes, large and small, I'm writing to offer you a piece of advice you probably don't need, being an old hand at community organizing.  We need to deepen our democracy -- to keep working together as neighbors to take up problems in our daily lives and our social traditions, as well as in our economy, our infrastructure, our environment, and our country's place in the world.  Together, "we" can bring our experience, intelligence, hard work, and imagination to bear on finding new ways to transform these problems that work for us all.

You've started the process of telling a new American story -- let's keep on through story-telling gatherings in our homes and at town hall meetings, contests in our schools and churches, prizes for new American visions in the arts, and public speaking contest for orators who, like you, can help us remember our best days as well as our worst ones while showing us how to start a new chapter.  

I'll get back to you soon with more suggestions.