Maine author and journalist Colin Woodard held an audience spellbound in a beautiful church in Brunswick recently by offering a way out of the current American crisis. Woodard leads the Nationhood Lab, researching American attitudes about our government.

Research shows most Americans (63%) think the ideals in the Declaration of Independence (“all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights including Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”) should be the basis of our government.

They did not choose the offered alternative that it should be based on “authoritarian ethnonationalist assertions holding that the nation rightly belongs to a subset of people whose will, interest and cultural practices should prevail,” Woodard said on Nationhood Lab’s website. Surprisingly , 97% of Americans thought it was their responsibility to support the inherent rights of other Americans. 

Woodard argues that many countries are held together by a common religion, ethnicity and a long history. In contrast, America was settled by 11 cultures and then by more immigrants from all over. With such a diverse population, it is important that Americans believe in and have in their consciousness the civic ideals of the Declaration.

If today’s leaders spoke as Lincoln or MLK Jr. did, we might never have succumbed to the current administration. Woodard’s team has written a core American narrative. Learn more nationhoodlab.org. If this was used by our leaders to emphasize our basic values and our narrative, it might lead to a more unified, democratic country.

Nancy Hasenfus
Brunswick