Patriotism and Optimism - Thoughts About The Future of America's Center-Left

This summer I began giving a presentation that has evolved into a new 30 minute deck called "On Patriotism and Optimism, Not Pessimism - Thoughts On The Future of America's Center-Left." The presentation, a lively talk with filled with nerdy charts and graphs, will attempt to make the case that America is not in decline and is in fact doing as well as it has in any point in our history. It is meant to be an implicit rebuttal to the core argument Trump is making about America and its decline, an argument which is malevolently selling America and its people short every day.

This deck, and the arguments within it, are my effort to help fashion a comprehensive response to the rise of Trump’s new politics. It has evolved over dozens of showings over the web and live in person to policy makers here in Washington and around the country.

There are several ways to tap into the thinking in this deck:

Watch – We show the deck live on the Internet a few times each month and do an in-person presentation once a month. Use this registration page to sign up for an upcoming webinar and this registration page for our July 11th luncheon. For additional showings, be sure to review the full schedule here.  All are welcome.

Read – We’ve put together some background reading for those who want to join us by diving into this space. It starts with the article I wrote on Medium this summer which got the ball behind “Patriotism and Optimism” going.

Review Core Slides – Below you can find some of the core slides in the deck, in PDF form. Take a look. Will give you a sense of where we are going with this, and of course leave you wanting more.

We have been pleased with the response the big arguments in this deck have received. Check it all out, and if you are interested in having me do a private showing for groups of 20 or more, please contact Chris Murphy here at NDN at cmurphy@ndn.org.

Best,
Simon