Image credit: Republic World, https://www.republicworld.com, July 5, 2025
Hi Elon, so I see you’re launching a new political party. Totally understand the impulse, and I guess if anyone can pull off the impossible, it’s you. I say this after watching the Falcon Heavy’s two booster rockets stick perfect landings back on Cape Canaveral last summer. I mean, just f-ing incredible!
You’re frustrated, I get it. Runaway national debt. Reduced incentives for renewable energy. Lower federal spending on space exploration. Failure to invest in long-term American competitiveness. I’m frustrated about these things, too!
Which is why I’m asking you to join me and other Americans who are working hard, every single day, to strengthen our beautiful, fragile American experiment in self-governance. We are America’s cross-partisan democracy-strengthening movement (yep, that’s a mouthful, I know). We are hundreds of organizations and tens of thousands of Americans strong. And we could use your help.
We are not strengthening America’s politics or shoring up our economy by starting alternative political parties. Well, actually, I guess you could say the Forward Party is doing this - and their innovative approach to providing voters with more (and better) choices is going pretty well so far!
But most of us are not starting political parties. Instead, we’re working within, across, and beyond the existing political parties to fix what we broadly agree is broken in America’s hyperpartisan, gridlocked, and acrimonious political culture.
Who are we, and what are we doing?
We are Open Primaries, unlocking primary voting access for millions of non party-affiliated voters.
We are FairVote, demonstrating the power of ranked choice voting to increase voter turnout and reduce candidate extremism.
We are the Independent Voter Project, expanding the rights of independent voters to participate in America’s stubbornly two-party system.
We are iCivics, fostering universal civic learning for Americans of all ages, from grade school through adulthood.
We are Constructive Dialogue Institute, helping educators and other leaders to advance free speech, critical thinking, and intellectual curiosity in learning spaces everywhere.
We are BridgeUSA, creating spaces on college campuses for young Republicans and young Democrats to debate amicably on complex policy issues.
We are Service Year Alliance, encouraging and inspiring young Americans to dedicate a year or more of public service to American communities.
We are Better Together America, nurturing the formation of local civic hubs that help communities engage in problem solving across lines of difference.
We are Assemble America, bringing the transformative power of citizen deliberation to cities, counties, and states so that residents and policymakers can make hard decisions together.
We are American Exchange Project, providing graduating high school seniors all across the country with free visits to see what life is like in each others’ towns.
We are Future Caucus, forging bipartisan caucuses of younger state legislators, to build skills, form friendships, and advance legislation together, across party lines.
We are Urban-Rural Action, bringing the best thinking of urban and rural residents together to work on shared problems and opportunities that transcend our geographic dividing lines.
We are Braver Angels and Civity and Living Room Conversations and Essential Partners and Harwood Institute and Convergence and Crossing Party Lines and Dignity.us, helping all Americans to see the fundamental dignity and worth in each other.
We are all of these organizations, and hundreds more. As individuals, we are Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and non-affiliated voters. You can find most of us on X, where we are somewhat countercultural in our effort to defuse, rather than drum up, political food fights. (We haven’t quite hacked the X algorithm yet, but we’re working on it, sigh.)
What we all share is a deep and abiding love of America, as a country, as an idea, as a future worth believing in.
Elon, if you also love your adopted country, then please consider using your massive media platform and your considerable financial resources to support America’s cross-partisan democracy-strengthening movement. (Best of all, your charitable donations are tax-deductible!)
Need to do some research first? You can learn more about our movement here and here and here.
Our name may not be as catchy as “MAGA,” and it certainly doesn’t fit on a red or black hat very well, but the American values, virtues, and principles that we espouse are stickier than any slogan, more enduring than any acronym.
Please help us to hold together our precious democratic republic for the next 250 years … or at least until Mars is ready for us!
DM @civichealthproj to start the conversation.