--- title: "What It Means to Be an American — and What It Requires of Us at This Moment" slug: "ellen-dollarhide-mccoy-ronald-reagan-institute-what-it-means-to-be-an-asu-gsv-2026" author: "Ellen Dollarhide McCoy, Eric Liu, Julie Lammers" date: "2026-04-13 12:00:00" category: "Premium" topics: "ASU+GSV 2026, conference transcript, Policy, PreK to Gray, Equality + Access, Civics Education" summary: "This panel explores the state of American democracy and civic education 250 years after the nation's founding, featuring Eric Liu (Citizen University), Ellen Dollarhide McCoy (Ronald Reagan Institute), Louise Dubé (iCivics), and Julie Lammers (Britebound)." banner: "" thumbnail: "" --- > **ASU+GSV 2026 Summit** | Monday, April 13, 2026, 2:10 pm-2:50 pm | The Forum ## Speakers - **Ellen Dollarhide McCoy**, Ronald Reagan Institute - **Eric Liu**, Citizen University - **Julie Lammers**, Britebound ## Key Takeaways - This panel explores the state of American democracy and civic education 250 years after the nation's founding, featuring Eric Liu (Citizen University), Ellen Dollarhide McCoy (Ronald Reagan Institute), Louise Dubé (iCivics), and Julie Lammers (Britebound). - Eric Liu frames America's condition as "damaged and resilient," arguing the country must close the gap between its stated creed and actual deeds. - The panelists share alarming data: very little K-12 civics is being taught, 35% of teachers changed lesson plans due to fear of backlash, and 20% considered quitting. - Key solutions discussed include iCivics' democratic classroom model, Citizen University's "Civic Saturdays" (faith-gathering-style civic rituals), the Reagan Institute's bipartisan convening approach, and Britebound's framing of civics education as career readiness. - The group agrees that the distinction between free expression and free exchange is critical -- Americans are sounding off everywhere but have lost the muscle for constructive dialogue across difference. ## Notable Quotes > "The state of our democracy, the state of our union, I would say is damaged and resilient. It's not a but, it's more of an and." > > — **Eric Liu** > "Free speech is not atrophying. People are sounding off everywhere. But free exchange is completely atrophying." > > — **Eric Liu** > "Over 35% of educators say they actually did change their lesson plans in the last year because of fear of backlash. And this is not about teaching about Iran. This is about teaching about the three branches of government." > > — **Louise Dubé (iCivics)** > "There's no debate if everyone agrees. And so we work to bring folks from both the left and the right, from both the arts and the sciences, to the stage to produce a plurality of viewpoints." > > — **Ellen Dollarhide McCoy** > "We talk a lot about things that are happening to youth. We don't actually ask them what it is they want, how they want to participate in the world." > > — **Julie Lammers** ## Full Transcript Hello, hello. Thank you so much for being here. I'm really excited about this panel and I'm really excited about the star panel. Because I want to start with this idea that America is not perfect. We're not. We've had all men are created equal in 1776, we the people in 1787, yet America had slavery. Women didn't have full rights. LGBTQ didn't either. But throughout all of this, we have had Americans who are willing to give their life, blood, sweat, and tears for the idea of America. That's what we're going to explore today. That no matter the color of your skin, who you love, who you worship, the idea of America keeps our country going, it keeps our democracy going. So in the next 40 minutes, we're going to explore what it means to be an American right now in this point in time. So Eric, I'm hoping that we can start with you. If you could just give us a state of play of our democracy 250 years since our founding. Well, yeah. So easy. That's called a cold open. Rosa, thank you so much for hosting this conversation, and it's great to be here, and thanks for you all for showing up. Some of us were chatting before we started that this session, this topic is a little atypical for this gathering, for this conference. Some of you may remember the old, maybe it's still the current slogan for the Marine Corps and their ads, the few, the proud, the Marines. This is the few and the proud who have decided that in a time like this, it really does matter to explore the American idea. I think this is so central. Rosa, I think the state of our democracy, the state of our union, I would say is damaged and resilient. It's not a but, it's more of an and. The damage is everywhere to be seen from whatever part of the country you live, whatever ideological perspective you might hold. We know that our institutions have been corroding for generations now, that our sense of responsibility to each other has been fraying, and the social fabric has been fraying as the country becomes more unequal. As many of the forces actually powered by many of the people at this conference are atomizing us and isolating us from one another. That damage is real, and we feel it in our bones. The resilience is equally a fact. I am, to use the language of Silicon Valley investors, I am long on America. I bet on this country. I think our resilience and our capacity for renewal goes straight to the thing that you just opened with, which is not a piece of rhetoric. This country is, at the end of the day, a set of ideas. Those ideas burn just as bright today as they did 250 years ago, to a whole different slate of people. But they burn, and the desire to close the gap between our stated creed, our high ideals, the things that were enunciated 250 years ago, and at various other refoundings of this country, the gap between that creed and our actual deeds, that's what it means to be American right now, is are you closing the gap, the creed-deed gap? I feel like we're living in a time right now where the upside of things being damaged is, you have a lot of people awakening to the need and the power of closing the creed-deed gap. I think that's what everybody here is all about. Yeah. As a news reporter, I travel around the country, talk to a lot of people, and I hear a lot of the voices, a lot of the worries that Americans have. I want to actually share a quote from late US Supreme Court Justice David Souter, and this is from 2012. He did an interview with PBS, and he said, I don't believe there is any problem of American politics and American public life, which is more significant today than the pervasive civic ignorance of the Constitution of the United States, and the structure of our government. And then he went on to say, one person will come forward and say, give me total power, and I will solve this problem. And so this was Souter in 2012, warning that there could be a rise of authoritarianism in our country. And so Ellen, I want to come to you next, because President Ronald Reagan coined the term informed patriotism. And in his farewell address, he asked, quote, are we doing a good enough job teaching our children about what America is? And so I'm hoping that you can take the baton on this, on informed patriotism today. Thank you for the question, Rosa. I'm so honored to be on the stage with you all. And let's talk a little bit about President Reagan and the context of that quote. So that comes from his 1989 farewell address to the nation. And President Reagan sent out a call to action to the American people. And he said, you know, I'm so proud that through my time in office, we've had a resurgence of national pride. But a good feeling alone isn't enough. It has to be paired with knowledge and understanding about what our country is, and how to be citizens. And Reagan sent that, directed that call to action specifically to young Americans. And he said, if great change across the country starts first at the dinner table, I'm paraphrasing a bit. And youth, if your parents and the adults in your life aren't teaching you about what it means to be an American, then call them out on it. And so at the Reagan Institute, this notion of informed patriotism is really what the work that my colleagues and I are doing. Working both with folks who are at the top of their careers, and we're also working with young people, students and college undergraduates. So I think I might just add, we know that Americans aren't really well-informed, nor are we very patriotic right now. And so the time is right for us to really lean into this notion of informed patriotism. And let's lean in when it comes to K through 12, because Louise, you focus on civic knowledge and civic attitude. So how do we engage K through 12 in this topic? I think right now, first, we have to grow a backbone and start to actually try to do it, right? So right now, the situation is not pretty at all. There's very little K-12 civics being taught, and whatever it is being taught is not being taken seriously. We don't appear on school performance measures, for example, or any of the measures which would be the kind of signals to a parent as to what is actually important in a child's education. Meanwhile, most or many of the state constitution have citizenship as part of the goals. So we've always recognized that that is a goal of the K-12 system. The K-12 institutional schooling system is still one of the most trusted institution in our nation. And while it is not perfect, as nothing is as you started out to tell us, it is a place where you meet people who are not necessarily exactly like you, right? So I think it would be a mistake not to use a K-12 system to make scale differences. In order to retain a democracy, you need scale. You need to capacitate young people. We are currently in a battle for young people's minds, bodies, energies. They don't necessarily believe in the American experiment right now. The problem that Eric pointed to is a two-way street. If you capacitate students, they will then understand only when they see change, when they see that they can actually impact something. We had a kid recently in one of our fellowships who decided that there wasn't enough oral health in Pennsylvania, rural part of Pennsylvania, and that that was a real problem in terms of the health of the community overall, which is true, right? And so he started a very small, very simple project where they gave free bags of oral dental hygiene bags. And that was a point in his career, educational career, where he saw that if you did something, something else happened. And this program went on beyond his fellowship. The community rallied around it. The dentists helped. The community in general is still supporting this project. Very small thing. And that's my message. We don't have to do big, big, big things. We can do little things that make a huge difference. And I think we can all go back to it's not perfect, but strides are being made. And so, Julie, I'm hoping that you can kind of talk a little bit about what you're doing at Bright Bound, because I think the really interesting thing that I found is that your approach. in approaching it as, okay, it might feel overwhelming for young people, but if you start with the personal impact, you might be able to get them. So I'm hoping that you can expand a little bit on that. Yes, so fundamentally, Bright Bound is an organization focused on career readiness. So many people are probably asking why is she sitting up there? But I think what we are trying to understand from an employer's perspective, as well as what's happening in schools, is that civics education is perfectly aligned with the types of skill building that employers say they need in the workforce. So when we think about critical thinking, collaboration, civic discourse, which we know employers are saying is a huge challenge in the workforce right now, people cannot disagree in ways that are productive and lead to long-term outcomes, conflict resolution, and leadership skills. These are all things that young people learn through civics education. And so part of our conversation is how do we reframe civics education to be about a fundamental career readiness activity as well? We know career-connected learning is something that schools are really trying to hone in on now, and so we are thinking about how do we link the two opportunities so that kids are getting both the civics education that we think are critically important for them to understand the world around them and participate in a different way, but also build those critical career readiness skills. And as you say, I think one of the things that's really missing is opportunities to bring youth into those conversations. We talk a lot about things that are happening to youth. We don't actually ask them what it is they want, how they want to participate in the world. And so providing them with opportunities in small ways to have their voice heard, to figure out what are the local community activities that they want to participate in that can really help hone in on the things that they love, that they can make a change in the world for themselves, is both a career readiness activity as well as really important civics engagement activity. The two are not mutually exclusive, and so we are spending a lot of time at BrightBound thinking how we can better link those so that we can solve both problems at the same time. And it's very tangible. That's one of the things that I really like, and I know you touched on it, Julie, but I also want to read to you a quote from the late Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, also on that personal impact. She said, quote, it is not enough to simply read or memorize the Constitution. Rather, we should try to understand the ideas that gave it life and that give it strength still today. So it's saying we're not just going to read it and memorize it. We're going to understand it. We're going to live it. And Erica, I want to go to you because you came up with Civic Saturdays, and I was reading about this. I'm hoping that you could share a little bit about that idea. And if you could see a parallel as to how it might also be translating into a classroom. Yeah, thank you, Rosa. For those of you who don't know the work of Citizen University, we're a nonprofit that organizes people all around the United States to practice civic power and cultivate civic character in a whole variety of programs and different settings. And one of those channels, one of those programs is called Civic Saturdays. And these are gatherings that are essentially a civic analog to a faith gathering. It's not a faith gathering. It's not church or synagogue or mosque, but it has the arc and the flow and the feel of that on purpose for the very reasons we've been talking about here, that so much of what it means to be an American is about a set of beliefs, a creed, and that one can just put that creed on a pedestal and gaze at it and admire it or throw things at it. But at the end of the day, the creed only lives to the extent that we animate it. Faith is only as good as works. And Civic Saturday is a gathering, a ritual that invites people from places all around the country. And these have happened, now we've trained over 300 of these people from small towns, big cities, blue and red places, to organize their neighbors and strangers into community settings where they can grapple with the very kinds of questions you're asking. It's not necessarily let's talk about the Constitution and what Article I means or what the 14th Amendment means, but it often ends up doing that. Having a structure where you're gonna sing together, you're gonna turn to strangers and talk to them, you're gonna read texts from throughout American history and our tradition that you might think of as civic scripture. Well, the 14th Amendment is an iconic piece of civic scripture, right, as is the Declaration, as is the preamble to the Constitution. And what Civic Saturday does is it takes a big, vast concept like the founding, the 250th, the Constitution, and brings it down to, at a scale of about this number of people in a room, how shall we live together? How shall we agree to disagree? How shall we learn to compromise? What rule sets do we need to compromise? How shall we separate our powers so not just one of us gets to tell everyone else what to do and how to do it? How shall we kind of abide by a pre-commitment to what we could call in our room the rule of law, right? That whatever we like or don't like about our outcomes, we continue to commit to the game, to the process, win or lose this round, right? Those are habits, Tocqueville called them habits of the heart, habits of heart and mind that get cultivated not online, not at mass media levels, but really in rooms where you can see people, look them in the eye, feel whether they're with you or not. And that's what Civic Saturdays are meant to do, to kind of remind us that a Republican government, a small R Republican government, not a Reagan capital R Republican, but a Republican government depends on people remembering how to make a little republic everywhere they go. If we right now were to be like, okay, we're locking the doors, we're now a little society and we got to figure out how to spend the next days, weeks, months together, we'd have to come to things that are ultimately expressed in the constitution. That is a really powerful way of devising how people can practice and circulate power and cultivate character without killing each other, right? That's a low bar, but that's kind of where we are right now. I feel safer now. Right, exactly. Well, and it's all comes, I think it all comes down to the human connection and making that connection with other humans and figuring out how to play in the same sandbox. Louise, I'm hoping that you can share how you approach graduating students that are ready to participate in a democracy. Yeah, so iCivics is not only the largest civics organization in the nation, but also is very active on the policy side. So when I said we need to grow a backbone, we do need to take this more seriously than we have so far. And so we have a policy team that acts in the states and federally. That policy team goes around and sets up the infrastructure on a very bipartisan basis for work to be done at scale within K-12 classrooms. So that includes more time in the classroom, middle school, high school. That includes more professional learning. So people might not know, but perhaps you guys do, but there's very little professional learning opportunities for social studies educator within the districts usually. And that's a problem. And within the district leadership, oftentimes there isn't the same capacity, or almost always there isn't the same capacity than there is for ELA or math or science, right? There's not the same support within the district. So those kinds of things are required. We also advocate for civic SEAL programs. Civic SEAL programs are very popular right now. They are recognition for student achievement on diplomas. We hope that that will become a college admission requirement, not requirement, but at least a draw for colleges when they see that a student has a civic SEAL on their diploma. And that's very popular in many, many states. So we go around and do that work so that we can set up the infrastructure and so that district leaders and parents can have conversations about how to do this work without being problematic in any way within the community. It should be something that the community supports and that we have deep engagement within parents, students, and the district leadership. So that's what we do. If you wanna know about your state, go to civicsnow, C-I-V-X-N-O-W.org. Look up your state. We maintain a database of the situation within your state on these measures of infrastructure for all 50 states. And it's really interesting that you mentioned leadership because that's what I was hoping to ask Ellen about next. Because as these conversations are happening right now in regards to the focus of AI and tech, how should leaders be approaching, still focusing on the civics and the readiness of students in those spaces where those decisions are being made? Well, it's clear we are at the cusp of rapid technological change. And now is the time for all of us to be asking what makes humans human and how do we promote human flourishing? And this technological change is happening across the entire world, but in America, we are largely signed on to the belief that democracy is a necessary though insufficient means to achieve human flourishing. So let's take that concept and actually apply it to our education policy landscape. So in my view, there are really two groups of people that are getting a lot of airtime right now. One of those groups is very prominent here at this conference, and that's what I'm going to call the future casters, people who are thinking about how do we harness AI to really promote human flourishing. And then the other group of people are folks who see AI as a bit of a distraction. And I'm going to call this group of people the let's fix the current system of education group. So those are folks who are debating assessment, and accountability, and school choice, and teacher prep. And I would argue that both of those groups are missing a really important viewpoint. And that's what folks on this stage, and hopefully you in this room, are here to advocate. And that is that civic knowledge and skills are the way to promote democracy. And democracy is how, in America, we work to promote human flourishing. Has anybody watched the movie Idiocracy? Yeah? That's sometimes what I fear, to be honest with you. I'm like, are we headed that way? Because that's a really scary world. But as we think of AI, and we think of these spaces, and where we're headed, because we're headed there. There's no going back. There's no going back. So I'm hoping, Julie, that you can help us put it into perspective. How should we balance all of this? There's a lot of worry. And then there's, OK, can we do something about it? But how are you looking at it in balancing the, OK, there's fears, but we need to go in a direction. We know that AI is taking us in a certain direction, but we don't want to lose our civics. Yeah. And so I think what we're thinking about is how we're balancing and really ensuring that AI is enabling good, solid work happening in schools, whether it's making schools more efficient or helping kids build the skills that they will need to be workplace ready. Those two are two critical things that we really need to focus on, particularly when we think about the digital divide that could be created when we don't provide equal access to skill building around AI. So that is something that we are looking at as an organization when it comes to the career readiness. I think one of the things that we are really focusing on, however, in the civics space is real, authentic experiences for young people. We have to balance what they can be exposed to through AI and the opportunity that AI has to expand access to information while still giving kids real hands-on opportunities. And so we are focusing this year quite a bit on funding an opportunity with the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation around the National Civics Bee. It's going back to the good old-fashioned spelling bee type activity, where the kids are learning civics through a civics bee. And so they have local competitions run by their local chambers of commerce. They go to a state competition this year. The national competition will be televised live from Washington, DC. But in the application to participate in this, all young people have to fill out a community action plan, what they are going to do personally in their community to try to make change. And so it's not about the theoretical ideas around civics. It is, what am I doing? What can I be empowered to do to ensure that change is happening in my community in the way I want to see it? Because I don't think we give kids enough power to do that. We often, as I said, talk about them, not to them. And so really trying to figure out what are the things that they can really delve into to make sure that civics really means something for them. It is not theoretical. It is not something that happens in a capital building someplace that they never visit. But it really is deeply rooted in their communities. And so giving kids those opportunities is something we really need to strive to do more of, because they are limited. They're few and far between. And it is the surest way we can really instill the true meaning of civics for a lot of young people, is if they actually experience it themselves and can feel it, rather than just testing them on something. The curriculum and the knowledge building is a critical piece. But also getting them into the community and experiencing civics in a real and authentic way is something that we have to do better. Yeah, I love that idea of it being tangible. Did you want to add something? Yeah, I guess so. I've been coming to this conference for a very, very long time. There's been a tension in the community for a very long time around the role of the human, the role of the teacher, whether it's at the center or whether technology is at the center of it. That is, I think, where there should be a very strong debate. I'm definitely on one side of this. So that's pretty obvious. But it is not to say that AI cannot help us get there. So there are many things that AI can do. We are using AI civics in order to build a process of co-design with districts for courses that meet the needs of their specific students. And that is a process that both meets the needs in a better way for civics and social studies, but also does the one thing that we have not been very good at as edtechers, which is to build buy-in during that process. Right, the number of, this is obvious, but the number of tools that sit on a shelf is pretty large. And if we could break that cycle so that teachers and administrators both have a voice in the process of creating what meets their actual needs, then you're talking about something different. So AI is both a significant danger to the relationship, a human relationship, which is central to kids' learning, and also could be potentially helpful. Yeah, and one of the things that I wanted to talk to too is actually something that you shared in the notes that you sent me, that iCivics conducted a teacher research recently. And you found that 20% of teachers surveyed wondered if they should quit because of backlash. And they were unsure whether their communities supported them. So to your point about having these conversations and these differing ideas and being able to come together and actually have a conversation, I was hoping that you could speak a little bit about how to overcome those fears. Yeah, so iCivics is more than 15 years old. I've never seen a time that's so hard for civics educators as it is today. So that's why we ran the survey. Over 2,200 teachers responded. I have the detailed reports with me, if you want. And the issue really has to do with, are parents with me? And that's why I'm talking about community and growing a backbone within the school leadership, because that's what it takes. It takes the whole district or the whole school to buy in so that everybody can have a safe experience. So over 35% of educators say they actually did change their lesson plans in the last year because of fear of backlash. And this is not about teaching about Iran or whatever. This is about teaching about the three branches of government. We're talking really base level here. And that's truly frightening for us. Over 50% of educators were not sure that parents were with them. We encourage all of our educators to actually have those conversations at the beginning of the school year. We also did other research in which we could demonstrate that it is actually very effective. Talking about current events is probably very effective and also more dangerous for a teacher if you're not going to get backed up. What is the most effective is setting up a democratic classroom. What do I mean by that? Setting up a democratic classroom where every voice is heard and where we have norms at the beginning of a school year where everybody can exchange idea, particularly when they disagree. That works. I could tell you right now, you will get better scores on your history test if you do that. And that's one of the things that I wanted to ask you about, actually, Eric, because you speak about, it's not just about free expression. It's about expressing those differing ideas. Yeah, I think there are two words that have come up here that I want to really underscore. One is exchange, free exchange. But the other is humanity. And it's already been a through line in this conversation. The point about free exchange is simply this, that so much of our political culture right now is riven by these debates, these often false binary debates about free speech and free expression. And the more kind of polarized we get about that, the more we treat free speech as an end to itself. But the framers, the founders, recognize that the point wasn't just to create an environment where everybody could kind of just grab a mic, sound off, and express themselves fully, and then drop the mic and leave the room. That's social media. That is social media. The whole point of free expression was so that we could actually cultivate a culture of free exchange. So after you express yourself, you've got to stay in the room and hear somebody whose view might be different from yours, might be diametrically opposed to yours, and then figure out how, in a constructive way, you might exchange perspectives, views. ideas takes on an issue. That culture of exchange is the point. It's why we have a constitution. It's why the First Amendment is the First Amendment. And it's why we're here. And so that muscle—free speech is not atrophying. People are sounding off everywhere. But free exchange is completely atrophying. We're in filter bubbles. We're in our own little isolated ideological realms we don't ever encounter, not even across left and right, across other just ways of—you know, artists to scientists. You know, there's probably—anyway, I'm guessing there are very few artists at this conference per scientist, right? Just those modalities of exchange and expression are important. And so I think for everyone here, whether you're coming as an educator, as an ed tech person, as a policy person, just to be thinking about how do I imprint exchange, actual kind of—the connection across difference and the creation of new hybrids, because that is what it means to be American, is that we're not just saying, oh, in this room there are two of every kind. It's not Noah's Ark, right? We have two of every kind of every demographic group or every ideological point of view. The point was actually to get us to hybridize and mix our left, right, artists, scientists, you know, young, old ways of seeing and thinking and doing stuff. And that gets to humanity. And that—you know, AI, I neither fear nor love AI, but we should remember AI, at least currently constituted, is nothing but a giant vacuum and synthesizer for what humans have said and done, right? So it's just taking everything and just blobbing it and kind of swirling it up, and then when you, you know, enter your chat GPT or your quad or whatever, it gives you a scoop of it, right? But we're the ones who are creating the content from which an AI spits out those scoops. And so to remember that, like, AI is only going to be as good, as interesting, as probing, as useful as we are. And so if we don't have the human relationships, if we don't have a prior commitment to actually humanizing each other across difference, creating the kind of democratic classroom that, Louise, you're talking about there, where you set norm—and by the way, that's not just in a K-12 classroom. This is a democratic classroom. We have set a norm. We have established a way of kind of learning from each other and listening to each other here. And those are the kinds of things that actually elevate our humanity. You know, when I said I neither loathe nor love AI, that's probably not true. I more loathe it than love it, because I think it is— Well, yeah, no, I do. I more loathe it and love it. I more loathe Silicon Valley than love it. Sorry. Sorry, GSV, you know. But that's just the reality of things right now, because I think it is taking us away from the actual fundamentals of humanizing and seeing one another that are foundational to democratic self-governance. Well, and to the point of the conversation, that's what's important about having these conversations with differing views, right? Sitting in the same room and talking with somebody who absolutely loves it. Okay, so then let's find the connection. And what I find fascinating about AI is that AI wants to be human, right? It's like, oh, how can we humanize this? What can we do? And it's like, okay, how about we all just work together and then figure it out? I want to actually go back to informed patriotism with this conversation about differing views and bringing the different views together. Ellen, because at the Ronald Reagan Institute, that's one of the things that you guys do. You bring these bipartisan voices together. So I'm hoping that you could share with us how you do it so effectively. Well, I hope we do it effectively. So, yeah, so I'm a context person, and maybe this is one of the reasons I work where I do, because I like to go back to history. But if you think about President Reagan, he was good friends with Tip O'Neill, who was the Democrat Speaker of the House. But at 6 o'clock in the evening, they could be good friends. But the rest of the day, they had very stark ideological differences. And it's kind of an amazing thing to think that they were able to put that aside and see each other as humans. And so the Reagan Foundation and Institute was designed to be a convening organization, a place where you would have a dynamic intellectual forum that allows policymakers and thought leaders to debate the future. But there's no debate if everyone agrees. And so we work to bring folks from both the left and the right, from both the arts and the sciences, to the stage to produce a plurality of viewpoints. And I have the privilege of overseeing the Reagan Institute Summit on Education. It's an annual event where we have brought both Democrat and Republican secretaries of state, and both Democrat and Republican governors and members of Congress to the stage. And there's something intimate and magical when you pull people together in a room that's actually probably about half the size of this room, and they have to see each other eye to eye and really exchange ideas. And so I think that there's hope for a country where there's still forums that both sides know that there will be a responsible and civil conversation. And can I just add, to the point around exchange and the fact that we have to do that better, that's a muscle that needs to be built. And that's not one that fundamentally we are teaching kids right now. And so that is something that's dearly missing from our K-12 education system. We talk to kids a lot. We don't allow them to have really in-depth debates, probably cut them off too soon when they start having deep discussions about things that might be too uncomfortable. But that's something we really should be encouraging more, not putting limits on. And so we need to figure out ways to encourage that respectful and educated debate around really important issues. It's something that really is a skill that has to be built and not one that any of our K-12 education systems are focusing on. And I want to end on a happy note, because I'm hoping that each one of you can, before we go, can share with us one thing that gives you hope about America right now. And we'll just go around the room. Oh, I have a lot of hope. I believe that we will be saved by our people. Eric talked about that. He talked about the resilience of our young people, certainly our young people. So I would encourage you, if you want to support that, please go and talk to your school board, to your principal, to your teachers. Tell them that you support them and that you're interested in the civic development of young people. So that's all. Good. Yeah, I have a great deal of hope as well. I've got a book coming out this October called Live Like a Citizen. And it's telling the stories of people all around the United States who are themselves the source of hope and rehumanization. And the book is not about electoral politics or policymaking. It is about these eight fundamental ways of being that we have forgotten, how to see, how to listen, how to join, how to fight, how to change, how to imagine, things like that that are just missing from our civic culture and our civic life. And the stories of the people who I describe in this book are the kinds of people just like you. I mean, actually, people have walked in this room. Michael Smith is here. Laura Tavares is here. Jacqueline Smith is here. Kyra Darton's here. People who are just themselves catalysts for so much renewal, so much connection, so much change between sectors, between ideologies in our country. And this is happening every day, not just at a big conference like this. And so I really do believe that a lot is possible still. Well, I have the privilege of overseeing some student programming at the Reagan Institute. We have the Civic Leaders Fellowship. And I just spent the weekend with 25 Gen Z college undergrad students. And it was a group selected, half who lean left and half who lean right. And man, they get it. They know what's causing the problems. They see that algorithms are addictive. And these are young people who want our country to be a healthy place for folks who are even younger, like my two-year-old daughter. And so when this group of college undergrads walked across the stage and got their certificate, you know, I was able to share with them that they offer hope for me for the following generation. Yeah, I agree. I think talking to students provides a lot of hope that they are not as disheartened with some of the things that are happening as we are. I think the arc of history is long. And so we study from history where we need to go next. But that requires us studying history. So I think it's a full circle moment. But I think talking to students and thinking about what they are hopeful for. is really what brings me hope. So I think there's a lot to be encouraged in this moment, not to just look at the news and think that all is bad. We have a lot of good things happening in the world as well. Please give them a big round of applause. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. --- *This transcript was put together by our friend [Philippos Savvides](https://scaleu.org) from Arizona State University. The original transcript and additional summit resources are available on [GitHub](https://github.com/savvides/asu-gsv-2026-summit-intelligence). Licensed under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).*