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Before we begin to tackle the specific problems America faces, from health care to immigration to the war in Iraq, your most important job is to change the national frame of mind. You must convince your fellow citizens that we can fix our problems; to believe once again that America can do anything it sets its mind to. To do that, it is not enough to repeat how great we are as a people and a nation. You must remind the country what it takes to be great and to have the courage to call for some sacrifice and hard work on the part of all Americans.
The first step is to get back to the values that our founders fought for and that have bound all Americans together as a nation. We’ve had to relearn the lesson of tolerance in our nation’s history, and we should do so again. For example, in the mid-19th century an order called the "Know Nothings" campaigned across the nation against immigrants. A key voice on the other side of this debate was Carl Schurz, who came to this country from Germany and rose to become a Republican senator from Wisconsin, a Civil War general, an ambassador, and Secretary of the Interior. In a passionate speech denouncing a Massachusetts proposal to limit the voting rights of immigrants, he reminded his fellow Americans of what he called "true Americanism, toleration."
You must call for Schurz's true Americanism today, with an added dose of humility. That is the only way out of the partisanship that has poisoned our politics. Republicans and Democrats must recognize that neither party has a monopoly on virtue and that both can benefit from listening to each other and finding ways to work together.
So on immigration, you must appoint leaders from both sides of the aisle to a national bipartisan commission on immigration reform. Charge them with recommending a set of policies that recognize our heritage as a country of immigrants but that also uphold the values of both justice and equality. Then ask leading Senators and members of the House to agree to accept the recommendations of the commission in advance.
In foreign policy, you must find partners from the other party to develop a bipartisan foreign policy going forward, following the example of the great Midwestern politician, Arthur Vandenberg. Vandenberg was a Michigan senator, Republican leader, and a prominent isolationist before World War II. He initially led the fight against President Roosevelt’s postwar strategy of preserving and extending U.S. strength by building international institutions. Yet on January 10, 1945, Vandenberg gave the speech of his life on the Senate floor.
The nation faced a critical moment, he said, requiring "the straightest, plainest, and the most courageous thinking of which we are capable.” “No man in his right senses will be dogmatic in his viewpoint at such an hour. … Each of us can only speak according to his little lights—and pray for a composite wisdom that shall lead us to high, safe ground." Speaking in a "spirit of anxious humility,” he announced that he now recognized the wisdom of the President's course. He went on to lead the bipartisan U.S. delegation to the conference that drafted the United Nations Charter.
In this light, the next phase of the war on terror cannot be fought only as a war. It's time to acknowledge that while we have successfully foiled a number of attacks and made some progress in capturing individual terrorists, we are losing the larger contest of ideas in the Muslim world.
You must ask Muslims themselves how to combat violent extremism within their ranks, both in the Middle East and for example in countries like Indonesia in East Asia, the nation with the largest Muslim population in the world and a functioning democracy. Then let them lead the fight against extremism, in part by helping them offer a positive alternative to their people: of development, economic cooperation, and education, in direct opposition to fundamentalist extremists’ fantasies of paradise.
If you can remind Americans that humility is the mark of strength and confidence rather than of weakness, you can marshal support for sharing international burdens. If we can genuinely consult with other nations and cultivate the relationships necessary to keep friends and allies, we will no longer have to be the world’s policeman, banker, and all-purpose fixer. And with more friends abroad, we will have more resources to spend at home. We can recover our values, reform our politics, and get down to work.
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