What is Renew the Republic?
Renew the Republic is a collection of essays that grapple with this turbulent era in America. What’s causing this turmoil and how we can get America through it into a new era of reform and renewal?
Each numbered essay in the collection discusses some aspect of what’s causing our national breakdown, what’s likely to happen next, what we’re doing wrong as citizens, and what we can start doing to fix it.
Think of it something like a modern, digital, Federalist Papers.
What is the Purpose of Renew the Republic?
This is America’s most disruptive era in our lives. Our political world is crumbling. Our society is rupturing. We face an attack of problems we still have no idea how to solve. Nothing in our twentieth-century political playbooks still works, everyone fiercely disagrees about everything, and no one knows what to do. The America we knew is collapsing.
Information-age economic disruption is rushing over everything like a transformational flood. We’re amidst a global reorganization of great powers. We face dizzying cultural change. Decaying institutions. An onslaught of difficult problems from climate change, to automation, to a national reckoning with the legacy of slavery and discrimination too long put off. And no one yet knows what to do.
Is it a surprise the certainty and stability we took for granted throughout our lifetimes is coming undone?
We need to shore up our splintering republic. To do that, we have to start serious reform of all our institutions for this new world ahead. Our decaying twentieth-century political parties, locked in old industrial era debates that no longer matter, among them. We need a new national debate over how to ensure we restore America’s promise that everyone, no matter where they start, will have a fair chance and level playing field to attain their dreams. The promise of the American Dream.
These essays are about getting us through this dangerous era and launching this new era of reform.
Who is Writing the Essays?
The author of this collection is Frank J. DiStefano.
Frank is a writer who focuses on American political history, particularly the rise and fall of political parties, the creation and destruction of America’s five distinct political eras, the bursts of moral and social reform that transformed America, and the cycle of American political realignments.
Also in his career, Frank has worked in politics on Capitol Hill and presidential campaigns. He has also been a Washington litigator and Federal Court of Appeals clerk. He has a degree in politics from Princeton and a law degree from Georgetown.
Frank is the author of the book The Next Realignment that explains why America is due for its new major political realignment, and that we need to begin a new political era instituting major national reforms and restoring the promise of the American Dream.
He also publishes videos on YouTube about American political history and political realignments.
You can also check out his website.
Why Subscribe to Renew the Republic?
While all the essays in Renew the Republic are available on the Substack website, if you subscribe you’ll also get them delivered to you in your inbox as soon as they appear.
More important, you’ll be joining the community of Americans worried about our republic and eager to begin our new era of reform and national renewal.
