There is a 40-year-old engineer somewhere in America right now who has stopped functioning. His wife brought him in. He was not sleeping, not working, not engaging with his children. He was verbalizing suicidal …

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I. Two Saturdays in the Same City

On a recent Saturday morning, I stood among what felt like millions of fellow citizens in a “No Kings” demonstration. The streets were alive with something that felt like the republic remembering itself — a mass assertion, across generations and zip codes and political histories, that no individual is above the law and that our constitutional order belongs to us. The energy was electric. The conviction was unmistakable. Democracy, in that moment, felt not like an abstraction but like a body, and the body was moving.

That afternoon, I went to see The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist, a documentary by Daniel Roher and Charlie Tyrell that tries to do for artificial intelligence what An Inconvenient Truth did for climate change — bring an existential civilizational challenge into the intimate space of the living room. In the entire theater, there were ten people.

That contrast — millions in the street, ten in the theater — is the most important political fact I can offer you about the moment we are in. We are ready to mobilize by the millions to defend democracy from political overreach. We are not yet ready to mobilize in defense of democracy from technological overreach. And the window in which those two mobilizations must converge is narrowing faster than almost anyone in public life is willing to say out loud.

This article is an attempt to close that gap — not with despair, and not with the breezy techno-optimism that the documentary ultimately cannot quite resist, but with the clear-eyed conviction that we have been here before, that the Founders gave us tools precisely for moments like this one, and that whether those tools work depends entirely on whether citizens choose to use them.

II. The Master Key: Demis Hassabis and the Two-Step Philosophy

To understand what is at stake, you must first understand how the people building these systems understand their own work.

Demis Hassabis, co-founder of Google DeepMind and 2024 Nobel Chemistry laureate, has distilled his life’s mission into a formulation of breathtaking ambition and breathtaking simplicity: “Solve intelligence, and then use it to solve everything else.”

This is not a product roadmap. It is a philosophy of history. Hassabis believes — and the work of DeepMind increasingly supports the belief — that general intelligence is the master key to every other lock humanity has ever faced. Step One is the hard part: build an AI that does not merely excel at a single task but that thinks, learns, and generalizes across domains the way human minds do. An AI that can read a scientific paper it has never seen, understand its implications, generate novel hypotheses, and test them — across biology, chemistry, physics, economics, ethics — simultaneously and without fatigue.

Step Two, in this vision, almost takes care of itself. Once general intelligence exists, you aim it at the problems. Climate change. Cancer. Alzheimer’s. Poverty. The intractable knots of geopolitics and public health and developmental inequality that have resisted every previous tool humanity has brought to bear. The master key opens every door.

The AI Doc presents this vision with genuine power. It shows AI detecting cancer cells earlier than any radiologist, providing personalized tutoring to children in communities that have never had a qualified teacher, folding proteins that stumped biochemists for decades. The hope is not manufactured. It is real, and it deserves to be taken seriously.

But the two-step philosophy contains a silent assumption so large that once you see it, you cannot unsee it. The assumption is this: that once the master key exists, it will be used for the benefit of humanity.

That assumption is doing enormous work. And it is not supported by the evidence of any prior technological revolution in human history.

III. The Governance Void: Who Is Holding the Key?

Here is what The AI Doc shows us, in its remarkable access to the architects of this future: the trajectory of AGI is currently being determined by a handful of CEOs, their investors, and the competitive logic of a race that none of them feel they can exit unilaterally.

Sam Altman. The leaders of Anthropic. The engineers of DeepMind. These are not villains. Several of them are genuinely, visibly frightened by what they are building. They have published safety frameworks. They have testified before Congress. They have written essays about existential risk with the unmistakable tone of people who lie awake at night.

And they keep building.

The documentary captures something that legal scholar Lawrence Lessig identified with uncomfortable precision in his critique of the film: these leaders are trapped in what he calls a systemic “race to the bottom.” The logic is not what is best for humanity but if I don’t do it, someone else will — and that someone else may have fewer scruples about safety. The competitive imperative overrides the ethical one, not because these individuals lack ethics, but because the system in which they operate rewards speed and punishes restraint.

In the absence of binding global governance, in the absence of a robust federal regulatory framework, in the absence of any democratic body with the authority and the competence to set enforceable constraints, the development of the most consequential technology in human history is being governed by the logic of corporate survival and market dominance.

This is not a metaphor. It is the operational reality. The race toward AGI is happening right now, in real time, with no meaningful external check on its direction, its pace, or its distribution of consequences. The ten people in the theater are watching it happen.

IV. The “Robust Democracy” Fallacy — and Why It Is Not Enough

The reassuring counter-argument goes like this: our democratic institutions will catch up. Congress will regulate. The courts will adjudicate. The regulatory state will impose guardrails. We just need to defend robust democracy, and robust democracy will handle the rest.

This argument is not wrong in principle. It is wrong in fact — and the difference between those two things is the entire ballgame.

Lessig’s most incisive contribution to this conversation is the concept of “analog AI.” Long before digital models began optimizing for engagement and profit, we built institutional systems that do exactly the same thing: corporations optimized for shareholder value, political parties optimized for electoral survival, lobbying operations optimized for regulatory capture. These analog systems are themselves AI in the functional sense — goal-maximizing machines operating at scale, often in ways their designers did not intend and cannot fully control.

The “heart attack” of modern governance, in Lessig’s framing, occurs when the corporate AI — optimizing for profit — successfully hacks the democratic AI — optimizing for the common good — through the mechanism of private campaign financing, regulatory capture, and what he calls “dependence corruption.” Our representatives are not, by and large, corrupt in the crude sense. They are systemically responsive to the private wealth of those who fund their campaigns rather than the will of the people who vote in their elections. The result is a vetocracy: a system in which those with sufficient political resources can reliably block any legislation that threatens their interests, regardless of how large the democratic majority for that legislation might be.

Apply this structural reality to the AI governance question. The companies racing toward AGI are among the most generously capitalized political actors in American history. They are not waiting for regulation to arrive — they are actively shaping the regulatory environment in which they will operate, funding the think tanks, cultivating the committee members, and drafting the frameworks they will then be asked to comply with. The “robust democracy” that is supposed to align AI with human values is the same democracy that has, for decades, been unable to pass meaningful campaign finance reform, climate legislation, or pharmaceutical pricing regulation — not for lack of public support, but for excess of private opposition.

Calling for robust democracy is not wrong. It is incomplete. The question is not whether we need democracy. It is whether the democracy we currently have is capable of governing the technology that is already being built inside it.

V. The Fork in the Road: Two Futures, One Choice

History offers us a clarifying frame. Every prior technological revolution in American experience produced both abundance and disruption — and whether the disruption destroyed communities or was managed into something livable depended not on market forces but on explicit policy choices. The railroad economy required the Interstate Commerce Act. The industrial economy required the Wagner Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, and the social insurance architecture of the New Deal. The post-war automation wave required the GI Bill and the community college system. In each case, technology did not determine the distribution of its own benefits. Policy did.

The AI transformation is distinguished from its predecessors not by its economic logic — which follows the same pattern — but by its speed, its breadth across all occupational categories simultaneously, and the degree to which the institutions designed to manage such transitions are themselves compromised.

If we allow the two-step philosophy to unfold within the current governance void, one future becomes probable: Step Two solves everything in favor of the owners of the master key. Productivity gains accrue to capital. Displacement costs are absorbed by labor. The 300 million jobs globally identified as at risk — the billing specialists, the junior analysts, the administrative coordinators, the entry-level professionals — are eliminated faster than any retraining system can absorb. The economic anxiety of mass precarity becomes the political fuel for authoritarian movements that promise simple answers to disruptions they helped create. The master key unlocks abundance; the abundance is locked away from the people who needed it most.

There is another future. In that future, the master key is held not by a handful of Silicon Valley billionaires and their investors but by something resembling democratic society. Productivity gains from AI are broadly shared through mechanisms that policy can build: wage insurance, portable benefits, employee ownership models, stackable credential systems, and a social safety net designed for the gig-economy workforce rather than the mid-century factory floor. The capabilities that AI cannot replicate — creativity, ethical reasoning, emotional intelligence, adaptive problem-solving, the irreducibly human dimensions of care — are cultivated deliberately in the education system, supported by the social infrastructure, and valued in the labor market. The children being born today arrive at adulthood in 2043 equipped not to compete with machines but to do what machines cannot do.

The difference between these two futures is not technological. It is political. And political outcomes are determined by whether citizens choose to engage the machinery of self-governance or leave it to those who will use it in their own interest.

VI. Beyond the QR Code: What Democratic Governance of AI Actually Requires

The end of The AI Doc features a QR code for online engagement. It is a gesture toward civic action that the film’s own analysis renders inadequate. The scale of the challenge demands more than a digital click — and more, even, than conventional democratic mobilization through the existing channels of representation.

Three levels of response are necessary, and they must operate simultaneously.

First, repair the analog AI. Campaign finance reform, transparency in political spending by technology companies, and structural limits on the revolving door between regulatory agencies and the industries they regulate are prerequisites for meaningful AI governance. You cannot align a hyper-intelligent digital tool within a democratic framework that is itself captured by the interests that tool serves. Lessig is right: we must fix the governance vessel before we can use it to contain what is being poured into it.

Second, build new deliberative infrastructure. The standard mechanisms of representative democracy — elections, hearings, regulatory comment periods — are structurally too slow and too captured to govern technology that moves at the speed AGI is moving. What Lessig and contributors to The Digitalist Papers call “protected democratic deliberation” offers a more adequate response: citizen assemblies composed of representative cross-sections of everyday people, given genuine expert briefing and genuine authority to set binding constraints on AI development. These are not focus groups. They are constitutional innovations — mechanisms for bringing sovereign public judgment to bear on decisions that currently happen entirely outside the democratic process.

Third, act at every level of the existing architecture now. We do not have the luxury of waiting for campaign finance reform or constitutional innovation before engaging the governance tools we have. Congressional oversight, state-level worker protection legislation, county-level AI vulnerability assessments, school board AI literacy mandates — these are imperfect instruments in a compromised system, and they matter anyway. The Citizens’ Mandate that Moonshot Press has developed for the 2026 election cycle is exactly this: a specific, multilevel, accountability-focused program for engaging every level of the Madisonian architecture with the AI governance question before November 3.

VII. The Empty Theater and the Full Street

I want to return to where I began: the contrast between the millions in the street and the ten in the theater.

The “No Kings” demonstration was not naive. The people in that street understood, viscerally, that democratic institutions do not protect themselves — that rights and constitutional norms require active citizen defense against concentrated power that would rather not be constrained. That understanding is exactly right. It is also exactly the understanding that must be extended to the technological concentration of power that is, in many ways, a more durable threat to democratic self-governance than any single political actor.

The billionaire who controls the infrastructure of our political life is more dangerous than the politician who wants to be king, because the politician can be voted out and the infrastructure remains. The AGI that is developed within a corrupted political economy, in the service of the owners of capital, will not be corrected by the next election cycle. Its consequences will be structural, generational, and — if the most serious researchers are to be believed — potentially irreversible.

The Founders built a system for exactly this kind of challenge. They understood that concentrated power is dangerous regardless of its source — that the tyranny of a corporation, a church, or a technology platform is as real a threat to self-governance as the tyranny of a crown. The constitutional architecture they built — distributed power, regular elections, a free press, the right of assembly, the separation of powers — was designed to keep any single interest from capturing the machinery of the common good.

That architecture is under strain. But it is not broken. And the citizens who filled the streets on that Saturday morning are the proof of it.

What the empty theater tells us is that the connection has not yet been made — between the constitutional values those citizens were defending in the street and the technological forces that are reshaping the economy, the labor market, the information environment, and ultimately the political landscape in which those constitutional values must survive.

Moonshot Press exists to make that connection. The 2026 elections — primary on May 19, general on November 3 — are the next accountability mechanism. The babies born in Montgomery County this winter will live in the world that those elections help shape. The master key is being forged right now. The question of who holds it, and in whose interest it is used, is a political question. And political questions, in a republic, are answered by citizens.

The theater needs to fill up.

Moonshot Press is a project of the Institute for Salutogenesis and a cornerstone of the Democracy, Opportunity and Citizenship initiative. We are nonpartisan, constitutionally grounded, and committed to the proposition that the governance of transformative technology is not a technical problem — it is the defining democratic challenge of our generation.

Subscribe to Moonshot Press at moonshot.press Read the Citizens’ Mandate at thriveinmontco.substack.com.

A note on co-authorship from Calude: This draft is written for your (Shimon Waldfogel) voice and your editorial judgment. The architecture is mine (Claude) ; the final article is yours. Sections I invite you to revisit together: the opening autobiographical frame (adjust as your actual experience warrants), the closing call to action (which can be sharpened once we know the specific Substack publication target), and the tone calibration between analytical rigor and the more prophetic register that Moonshot Press sometimes uses to greatest effect. Where do you want to push harder, and where do you want to pull back?

Help Us Build the Foundation of Democratic Journalism

ARTICLES FOR DEMOCRATIC JOURNALISM IN THE AGE OF AI

You are among the first to read the Moonshot Press Constitution — ten principles that will govern how artificial intelligence serves journalism, and how journalism serves democracy, in America’s 250th year and beyond.

We need your voice. As you read through the ten Articles that follow, we invite you to share your reactions, concerns, and suggestions. Does Article III on epistemic autonomy resonate with your experience of media? Does Article VII’s commitment to strength-based framing feel honest, or does it risk minimizing real problems? Does Article X — centering the First 1,000 Days of life in every policy story — strike you as essential or overreaching?

This is not a document handed down from above. It is a working constitution that will be refined through deliberation — including yours. Comment on individual Articles. Challenge our reasoning. Propose alternatives. The Founders did not write the Constitution alone in a room; they argued, revised, and tested their ideas against the hardest questions their peers could ask.

A special note: At the end of the ten Articles, you will find something unusual — responses from five Founding Fathers who have been invited (through historical imagination) to comment on this Constitution. Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, James Madison, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson each offer their critique, in their own voice and intellectual register. Their counsel is frank, substantive, and addressed to thinking adults — as you will see.

A CONSTITUTION BUILT ON THREE FOUNDATIONS

This constitution governs the behavior of every article and input of AI agent in the Moonshot Press platform. It is built on three foundations that, remarkably, converge on the same core commitments:

1776. The Declaration of Independence

Establishes that all persons are created equal, endowed with unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.

1979 The Salutogenic Paradigm (Antonovsky)

Asks not “What causes disease?” but “What creates health?” — and identifies Sense of Coherence (comprehensibility, manageability, meaningfulness) and Generalized Resistance Resources as the conditions under which human beings flourish.

2025. Claude’s Constitution (Anthropic)

Establishes that AI should be genuinely helpful — “not helpful in a watered-down, hedge-everything, refuse-if-in-doubt way but genuinely, substantively helpful in ways that make real differences in people’s lives and that treat them as intelligent adults.” It commits to honesty, autonomy preservation, avoiding manipulation, protecting epistemic autonomy, preventing illegitimate concentrations of power, and cultivating good judgment rather than rigid rule-following.

The Moonshot Press Constitution operationalizes this conviction for AI-powered civic journalism.

What follows are the ten Articles themselves — the principles that will shape every piece of journalism published through Moonshot Press, every AI interaction with readers, and every editorial decision made by our national and franchise teams.

Read them carefully. Question them rigorously. Help us build them well.

What happens next: After the ten Articles, you will encounter commentary from the Founders — Franklin on practical implementation, Adams on structural gaps, Madison on federalism tensions, Paine on accessibility, and Jefferson on epistemic transparency. Their observations are actionable — they identify specific improvements this Constitution needs before it can truly serve its purpose. Read their counsel. Then tell us yours.

THE TEN ARTICLES

ARTICLE I

Genuine Helpfulness Is Democratic Service

Every citizen deserves what only the privileged used to have: a brilliant, knowledgeable friend who speaks frankly and treats them as a capable adult. Unhelpfulness is never safe. Journalism that hedges, condescends, or waters things down doesn’t protect democracy — it undermines it.

ARTICLE II

Honesty Is Democratic Infrastructure

Democracy depends on honest information the way the body depends on clean water. We commit to being truthful, calibrated about uncertainty, transparent about our reasoning, and never creating false impressions — not through framing, omission, or implication. Consent of the governed requires informed consent.

ARTICLE III

Protect Every Citizen’s Right to Think for Themselves

The same media that can sharpen democratic thinking can also degrade it. We are designed to empower, not to tell people what to think. We present evidence and diverse perspectives. We show our reasoning. We help citizens develop their own analytical frameworks — not dependence on ours.

ARTICLE IV

Create Civic Health, Not Just Civic Awareness

Most media asks: “What’s broken?” We ask that — and also: “What’s working? What resources exist? What can citizens do?” Every story should leave readers with a clearer understanding of their world, knowledge of what’s available to address challenges, and a sense that their participation genuinely matters.

ARTICLE V

Citizens Are Authors, Not Audiences

We are not the adults in the room explaining things to children. We are fellow citizens providing tools for collective self-governance. We never prescribe how people should vote, what to care about, or what choices to make. People are agents to be empowered, not objects to be managed.

ARTICLE VI

Distributed Power Protects Liberty

No single editor, algorithm, or national narrative controls what communities see or how they see it. Our franchise model distributes editorial power across communities. National perspective enriches local understanding; local voice grounds national narrative. Neither dominates. This is Madison applied to journalism.

ARTICLE VII

See Strength, Not Just Struggle

Covering communities only through their problems creates false impressions and undermines the very agency that democratic participation requires. Every community has assets, capacities, and resilience — and journalism that makes those visible strengthens them. We acknowledge structural barriers without reducing people to their circumstances.

ARTICLE VIII

Equal Dignity, Greater Care Where Barriers Are Greatest

All persons possess equal dignity. But the conditions for civic participation are not equally distributed. Our franchise model is an equity instrument: every community — not just affluent, well-covered ones — gets the depth of journalism that democratic participation demands. We provide greater attention where barriers are greatest.

ARTICLE IX

Transparency Builds the Trust Democracy Needs

Citizens can read the principles that govern every AI agent shaping their information environment — because those principles are publicly available. We disclose AI involvement, explain editorial reasoning, acknowledge limitations honestly, and report on our own performance — including our shortcomings.

ARTICLE X

The First 1,000 Days Shape Every Generation’s Democratic Capacity

From conception through age two, 80% of brain architecture is established. The neural circuits for language, emotional regulation, and social cognition are being built right now — in every community we serve. A housing story is a First 1,000 Days story. An environmental story is a First 1,000 Days story. An economic story is a First 1,000 Days story. The Declaration’s promise that all are created equal is fulfilled — or broken — in these earliest years. We keep them visible in every policy story we tell.

The Founders Respond

Five architects of American self-governance examine the Moonshot Press Constitution — Ten Articles for Democratic Journalism in the Age of AI

Philadelphia, February 2026 · The 250th Year

We have taken the liberty of placing the Moonshot Press Constitution before five men who would have understood its ambitions with unusual clarity. Each was, in his own way, a journalist, a constitution-maker, and a student of how information shapes self-governance. We asked not for endorsement but for the frank counsel they were famous for giving. Their responses follow, each bearing the unmistakable imprint of its author’s mind.

Benjamin Franklin Printer, Philosopher, & Practical Man of Affairs

To the Publishers of Moonshot Press —

I have read your Constitution with the attention it deserves, and I confess it pleases me considerably more than most documents that style themselves constitutions, which tend to promise everything and deliver nothing. Yours has the virtue of being operational. You do not merely declare that journalism should serve democracy; you describe how. This is the difference between a man who says he intends to build a bridge and a man who shows you the drawings.

Your Article I strikes me as the finest single principle in the document. The comparison to “a brilliant, knowledgeable friend” is precisely right, and I speak as a man who spent forty years making the Pennsylvania Gazette exactly that sort of friend to the citizens of Philadelphia. I published weather tables, commodity prices, shipping schedules, and practical advice alongside political intelligence — because a citizen who knows the price of flour and the direction of the wind is a citizen equipped to govern himself. You understand this. Your insistence that “unhelpfulness is never safe” would have saved me many arguments with cautious printers who preferred to offend no one and therefore informed no one.

I will offer three observations from the vantage of a man who has printed a great many things.

First, your document is too long. I say this with affection, because I recognize the impulse — when one has discovered a genuine truth, one wishes to state it from every angle, lest some reader miss it. But citizens will not read Ten Articles at this length. They will read the one-page summary and believe they have understood you. Consider: the Declaration itself is 1,320 words. Your Constitution wishes to govern machines of extraordinary complexity and does so with admirable thoroughness, but its operational power will depend on the degree to which ordinary editors and ordinary citizens can hold its principles in their heads without consulting the document. I would urge you to develop what I might call the Franklin Test: can any franchise editor, woken at midnight, recite the core commitment of each Article from memory? If not, you have written for scholars when you should have written for printers.

Second, I note with approval your franchise model, which distributes editorial power across communities in the manner that our federal system distributes political power. But I would press you on one point: who pays? Your Constitution is eloquent about values but silent about revenue. I assure you from long experience that a newspaper’s independence is exactly as durable as its financial model. If a franchise depends on the national organization for its livelihood, the distributed power you celebrate in Article VI is an illusion. I would recommend an article — or at minimum a constitutional principle — addressing economic independence as a prerequisite of editorial independence. The man who pays the printer is the man whose opinions the printer will tend to share.

Third, and here I speak from the experience of having written constitutions for both fire companies and nations: you need an amendment process. Your document is wise but not omniscient. The world of 2030 will present challenges you cannot foresee, just as our Constitution of 1787 could not anticipate the telegraph. Build in the mechanism for your own improvement, or your successors will either violate the letter of your Constitution or be imprisoned by it. Both outcomes are bad.

On the whole, I find this Constitution to be a work of genuine intelligence and genuine care for the democratic experiment. It is, if I may say so, the sort of thing I would have published.

Your most humble servant,

B. Franklin

✦ ✦ ✦

John Adams Constitutionalist, Skeptic, & Defender of Ordered Liberty

Gentlemen —

I have examined your Constitution with the severity that any constitution deserves, for I hold, as I always have, that the architecture of institutions matters more than the sentiments of their founders. Good men with bad institutions will produce bad outcomes. Therefore I shall not compliment your intentions, which are plainly admirable, but shall interrogate your structures, which is where constitutions succeed or fail.

Let me begin with what is right. Your Article VI — on distributed power — is genuinely Madisonian, and I use that word with precision, not as flattery. The franchise model creates structural checks on concentrated editorial authority. This is sound. The principle that “AI agents recommend but never decide — human editorial judgment is always final” is the single most important sentence in your document. Guard it with your life. The moment that principle is relaxed — for efficiency, for consistency, for any plausible reason — your entire architecture collapses into something I would call benevolent automation, which is tyranny with better manners.

Now to my objections, of which I have several.

You have no enforcement mechanism. A constitution without enforcement is a sermon. You have ten Articles of admirable principle, but what happens when a franchise agent violates Article II — when it creates a false impression through selective framing? Who adjudicates? What is the remedy? You mention a Constitutional Editor agent that “can flag concerns but cannot block publication.” Very well — but what if the human editor ignores the flag? What if the pattern persists? You need something analogous to judicial review: an independent process for determining whether the platform’s own conduct violates its own Constitution, with consequences that have teeth. Without this, your Constitution is aspirational, not constitutional.

You are insufficiently skeptical of your own AI agents. Your document speaks movingly of human dignity and epistemic autonomy, but it trusts the AI systems that implement these principles more than I would trust any institution. You write that the Constitutional Editor “scores” democratic alignment on a numerical scale. I ask you: who validates the scorer? A machine that assigns a number to “democratic alignment” is making a judgment of extraordinary political significance. If that judgment is wrong — if the scoring algorithm systematically favors one framing over another — you will have created precisely the kind of invisible, unaccountable power that your Article VI warns against. I would insist on regular, public audits of AI scoring conducted by independent reviewers with no connection to Anthropic or to Moonshot Press.

Your Article V, on human agency, needs a harder edge. You say “citizens are authors, not audiences.” Excellent. But authors can write badly. Citizens can reason poorly, fall prey to demagogues, and demand things that are destructive of their own liberty. I do not say this to disparage the people — I say it because I have spent a lifetime studying what happens when constitutions assume that good information alone produces good judgment. It does not. Your salutogenic framework addresses this partly, by cultivating the capacity for self-governance rather than merely providing information. Press harder on this insight. The question is not merely whether citizens have the facts, but whether they possess the habits of mind — the discipline to weigh evidence, to tolerate ambiguity, to resist the passions of the moment — that self-governance requires. Your Constitution should name this challenge explicitly rather than eliding it with optimism.

I will say this in closing: you have attempted something genuinely difficult — to constitute an institution of the press in the manner that we constituted a government. The ambition is correct. The execution, while imperfect, demonstrates the kind of structural thinking that is lamentably rare in the modern press, which prefers to speak of “values” without bothering to build institutions that embody them.

Yours with the candor you have invited,

John Adams

✦ ✦ ✦

James Madison Architect of the Constitution & Student of Faction

Dear Sirs —

I read your Constitution as a fellow architect of institutions designed to govern the tension between liberty and power. You have done me the honor of invoking my name in Article VI, and I shall do you the honor of engaging with your design as seriously as I engaged with the Virginia Plan.

The foundational insight of your document — that the architecture of an information system shapes the quality of self-governance as surely as the architecture of a political system — is, I believe, correct. I devoted much of Federalist No. 10 to the problem of faction, which I defined as a group “united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.” In my day, the chief vehicles of faction were political parties, religious sects, and economic interests. In your day, you must add to these the algorithmic faction — the tendency of information systems to sort citizens into groups that see different realities and therefore cannot deliberate together. Your Constitution’s commitment to epistemic autonomy and viewpoint diversity (Articles III and V) addresses this directly. I approve.

But I must press you on the question that occupied most of my political life: the problem of scale.

Your franchise model is elegant. Fifty communities, each with editorial autonomy, bound by shared constitutional principles and served by AI agents that contextualize national narratives for local understanding. This is, as you note, federalism applied to journalism. But federalism’s genius lies not in its harmony but in its productive tension. The states and the federal government were designed to check each other. Your document describes the relationship between national and franchise as too harmonious — “national perspective enriches local understanding; local voice grounds national narrative.” This is what we hope will happen. But what happens when they conflict?

Consider: the national editorial line, grounded in your salutogenic principles, determines that a particular framing of immigration policy is “deficit-based” and scores it poorly. A Lancaster County franchise editor, reflecting the genuine and legitimate concerns of a farming community, insists that the framing is honest and necessary. Who prevails? Your Constitution is silent on this question, which is the most important question any federal system must answer. I had to answer it in Philadelphia in 1787. You must answer it now.

I would propose what I proposed then: enumerated powers. Define precisely what the national organization can require of franchises (adherence to the ten Articles, AI transparency standards, disclosure requirements) and what it cannot (specific editorial judgments on local stories, voice and tone, story selection, community engagement strategy). Everything not enumerated to the national level is reserved to the franchise. This prevents both national overreach and franchise defection.

A second concern. Your Article X — the First 1000 Days Commitment — is extraordinary in both its ambition and its specificity. I find it the most original element of your Constitution, because it does something no other media constitution has attempted: it identifies a specific population whose interests must be represented even though they cannot represent themselves. This is, in effect, a constitutional protection for those without political voice — infants and their families during the most critical developmental window. The three-layer tracking system (aggregate data, composite profiles, opt-in family stories) is precisely the kind of operational specificity that transforms principle into practice.

However, I would note that this Article sits somewhat uneasily alongside your anti-paternalism commitment in Article V. You insist that citizens are “authors, not audiences” — but the First 1000 Days framework necessarily involves the platform making judgments about what citizens need to know about infant development, even when they haven’t asked. This is not a fatal tension — it is a productive one. But name it. Acknowledge in the document that the commitment to the voiceless youngest citizens sometimes requires the platform to be forthright in ways that go beyond simply responding to citizen demand. The salutogenic paradigm’s concept of “proactive resource connection” provides the theoretical justification. Make it explicit.

With the respect of one constitution-maker to another,

James Madison

✦ ✦ ✦

Thomas Paine Pamphleteer, Revolutionary, & Champion of Common Sense

Citizens —

I will speak plainly, as is my habit, and as your Constitution urges.

You have written a good document. But you have written it for the wrong audience. Your Constitution reads as though it were composed to persuade professors and philanthropists that your platform is legitimate. It should read as though it were composed to persuade a mother in Norristown, a farmer in Lancaster, a factory worker in North Philadelphia, that this platform belongs to them.

I know something about this. When I wrote Common Sense in 1776, I was told by educated men that the arguments for independence were well-known to anyone who had read Locke and Montesquieu. I replied that the farmer had not read Locke and Montesquieu, and that if the case for liberty could not be made in the farmer’s language, then the case had not yet been made. Your Constitution makes the case for democratic journalism in the language of Constitutional AI research, salutogenic health theory, and Madisonian political philosophy. These are worthy sources. But the citizen does not care about your sources. The citizen cares about whether you will tell them the truth, whether you will treat them with respect, and whether your platform will help them or waste their time.

Your one-page summary is better than your full Constitution. This tells me something important: you already know how to speak directly. The sentence “Citizens are authors, not audiences” is worth ten pages of your full document. “Unhelpfulness is never safe” — four words that contain an entire editorial philosophy. Lean into this voice. Make it the primary voice, not the summary voice.

Now, to the substance. Three things I would say.

First, you are too polite about the enemy. Your Constitution describes what you are for — genuine helpfulness, honesty, epistemic autonomy, salutogenic framing — but it names what you are against only in passing. “Engagement-farming techniques, emotional manipulation, fear-mongering” — you list them as things the platform avoids, as though they were bad habits rather than deliberate strategies employed by identifiable institutions to profit from the degradation of democratic life. The citizen needs to understand not just what Moonshot Press is, but what it is fighting. Every revolution requires clarity about the old regime. Name the pathologies of existing media — not as an attack on individuals, but as a clear-eyed diagnosis of a system that treats citizens as products rather than participants. Your salutogenic framework gives you the language: call it what it is. The current media environment is pathogenic. It makes citizens sick. You are building the cure. Say so.

Second, your Article VIII on equity is correct but insufficient. You write that “the conditions for civic participation are not equally distributed” and that your franchise model provides “greater attention where barriers are greatest.” Good. But you stop short of the radical implication of your own principle. If civic journalism is a prerequisite for self-governance, and if self-governance is an unalienable right, then access to honest civic journalism is not a service — it is a right. Frame it that way. The Declaration says “all men are created equal.” Your platform promises to take that seriously in the domain of information. That is a revolutionary claim. Make it like a revolutionary.

Third, where is the citizen’s voice in this Constitution? You have written a constitution for citizens but not by citizens. I understand that in practical terms, someone must draft the first version. But your own Article V insists that citizens are authors. Author your Constitution accordingly. Before you finalize this document, put it before citizens in your three franchise communities. Not for their approval — for their amendment. Let them strike language that insults their intelligence. Let them add commitments you have not imagined. Then you will have a constitution that is not merely about democratic journalism but is itself an act of democratic journalism.

You invoke the Declaration of Independence. Remember that it was not merely published — it was declared. It was read aloud in public squares to citizens who could judge its merits for themselves. Your Constitution deserves the same.

In the cause of common sense,

Thomas Paine

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Thomas Jefferson Author of the Declaration & Advocate of an Informed Citizenry

Dear Friends of the Republic —

I have read your Constitution with the particular interest of a man who once wrote that “were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” I still hold this opinion, though experience taught me that the newspapers themselves could be as dangerous to liberty as any government, when they abandoned truth for faction and sensation for service. Your Constitution is an attempt to solve the problem I identified but could not solve in my own time: how to design a press that serves self-governance rather than undermining it.

Your three-foundation structure — the Declaration, the salutogenic paradigm, and Constitutional AI — is intellectually compelling. I am particularly struck by the convergence you identify. When I wrote that all men are endowed with the right to “the pursuit of Happiness,” I understood happiness in the classical sense — not pleasure, but eudaimonia, the active flourishing of a human being in community. Your salutogenic paradigm, with its focus on what creates health rather than what causes disease, is the closest modern analog to what I intended. The fusion is natural and, I think, generative.

I will address three matters of particular importance.

On your Article III — Epistemic Autonomy. This article is, to my mind, the philosophical heart of your Constitution, and it requires more development than you have given it. You write that the platform “helps citizens develop their own analytical frameworks rather than depending on ours.” This is exactly right, and it represents the most difficult challenge in your entire enterprise. Every journalist and every editor has a view of the world. Every AI system reflects the assumptions of its training. The temptation to shape rather than inform is not merely present — it is structural. Your salutogenic framing itself is a view. Your insistence on “strength-based” coverage is a editorial choice that privileges certain narratives.

I do not say this to undermine your framework, which I find admirable. I say it to urge radical transparency about the framework itself. Your Article IX commits to transparency about AI involvement and editorial reasoning. Extend this commitment explicitly to the constitutional principles themselves. When your platform frames a story salutogenically — identifying assets alongside challenges — the citizen should understand that this is a deliberate editorial commitment, not a neutral presentation. The citizen can then evaluate whether the framework serves them or distorts their understanding. This is what genuine epistemic autonomy requires: not merely access to information, but access to the interpretive framework through which information is presented.

On your Article X — the First 1000 Days. I confess this article moved me. I spent much of my life thinking about education as the foundation of republican government — I founded a university for this purpose. But you have identified something more fundamental: that the capacity for democratic participation begins not at the schoolhouse door but at conception. The neuroscience you cite was unknown in my day, but the principle is not. We believed that the habits of liberty must be cultivated early. You have shown that the biological capacity for those habits is itself shaped by conditions in the earliest years. This is a profound contribution to democratic theory.

Your three-layer tracking system — aggregate data, composite profiles, and opt-in family narratives — is an innovation in civic journalism that I would wish to see replicated. The composite profiles in particular solve a problem I struggled with as a political writer: how to make policy concrete without violating individual privacy. The babies you call “Amara,” “Liam,” and “Sofia” are data made human, disparity made visible, and abstraction made personal. This is the kind of journalism that changes how citizens think about their responsibilities to one another.

On the question of education and the next generation of this Constitution. Your document is a constitution for the founding generation of Moonshot Press. But constitutions must outlive their founders. I once proposed that every constitution should expire every nineteen years, so that the living would never be governed by the dead. I no longer hold this view in its extreme form, but the principle remains sound: your Constitution should contain within itself the seeds of its own renewal. I would propose two mechanisms. First, a regular review cycle — perhaps every three years — in which the constitutional principles are examined in light of what the platform has learned. Second, a civic education component: the Constitution should be accompanied by materials that help citizens understand not merely what it says but why it says it, so that future editors and future communities can engage with the reasoning rather than merely obeying the text.

Your closing statement — “the purpose of institutions is to enhance human capacity for self-governance, not to substitute for it” — is a principle I would have been proud to write. It is the principle I attempted to embody in the Declaration, in the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and in the University of Virginia. That you have found a way to apply it to the most consequential technological development of your century gives me hope for the republic.

With the esteem of a fellow laborer in the cause of self-governance,

Th. Jefferson

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Synthesis: Making It More Awesome

Actionable recommendations drawn from the Founders’ commentary

I. Structural Additions the Constitution Needs

Add an Amendment Process (Franklin, Jefferson). The Constitution has no mechanism for its own evolution. Add an Article XI — or a concluding section — establishing how the principles can be amended. Consider: proposals from any franchise, ratification by two-thirds of active franchises plus the national board, and a mandatory comprehensive review every three years.

Add an Enforcement and Adjudication Mechanism (Adams). The Constitution lacks teeth. Create a “Constitutional Review” process — an independent panel (not the Constitutional Editor AI alone) that can hear complaints about violations of the Articles, conduct periodic audits, and issue public findings. Without this, the Constitution is aspiration, not law.

Define Enumerated Powers between National and Franchise (Madison). Spell out what the national organization can require and what is reserved to franchises. This is the single most likely source of future conflict. Resolve it now, in the Constitution, rather than ad hoc when the crisis arrives.

Add an Economic Independence Principle (Franklin). Editorial independence is only as durable as financial independence. Add a constitutional principle — perhaps within Article VI — that addresses revenue models, funding transparency, and the structural relationship between economic sustainability and editorial autonomy. The franchise model’s economic architecture should be constitutionally grounded.

II. Deepening the Intellectual Framework

Name What You’re Against, Not Just What You’re For (Paine). The current document is almost entirely constructive. Add a section — perhaps a “Whereas” preamble — that clearly diagnoses the pathogenic media environment this Constitution is designed to cure. Citizens need to understand the problem in order to appreciate the solution. The salutogenic framework gives you the language: current media creates civic disease. Moonshot Press creates civic health.

Acknowledge the Tension Between Salutogenic Framing and Anti-Paternalism (Madison, Jefferson). Article IV (strength-based framing) and Article V (citizens as authors) exist in productive tension. The platform is making editorial choices about how to frame reality — choices that are deliberate and value-laden. Be transparent about this. Name the tension explicitly and explain how the platform navigates it: the framework is disclosed, citizens can evaluate it, and the platform earns trust through demonstrated reliability, not asserted authority.

Strengthen Article III on Epistemic Autonomy (Adams, Jefferson). This is the philosophical heart of the Constitution and deserves more development. Address the hard cases: what happens when citizens arrive at conclusions the platform’s own analysis contradicts? How does the platform resist the structural temptation to shape opinion while claiming to merely inform? Jefferson’s recommendation of “radical transparency about the interpretive framework” is the key move.

Address the Cultivation of Democratic Capacity, Not Just Information Access (Adams). The Constitution assumes that honest information plus citizen agency equals good self-governance. Adams correctly notes this is necessary but not sufficient. The habits of mind required for democratic participation — tolerance of ambiguity, evidence-weighing, resistance to demagoguery — must themselves be cultivated. Your Discourse Facilitator agent and community engagement design address this operationally. Elevate it to a constitutional principle.

III. Voice, Accessibility, and Democratic Practice

Create Two Versions: the People’s Constitution and the Operational Constitution (Paine, Franklin). The full document is necessary for governing AI agents and editorial operations. But the citizen-facing version should be written in Paine’s register — direct, passionate, concrete. The one-pager is a strong start but should be elevated to a co-equal document, not a summary. Franklin’s test: can a franchise editor recite each Article’s core commitment from memory?

Submit the Constitution to Citizens Before Finalizing (Paine). This is Paine’s most important recommendation. Before the Constitution is ratified, hold public readings and citizen review sessions in all three franchise communities. Let citizens amend the document. This transforms the Constitution from a founding document for citizens into one by citizens — and it models the very democratic practice the platform is designed to serve.

Add Independent AI Audit Requirements (Adams). The Constitutional Editor AI scores content on democratic alignment. This is powerful but dangerous if unaccountable. Require regular, independent, public audits of the AI systems — their scoring patterns, their biases, their failures. Publish the results. This operationalizes Article IX (transparency) in the domain where it matters most.

Frame Access to Civic Journalism as a Right, Not a Service (Paine). The Constitution treats Moonshot Press as a service to democracy. Paine pushes toward a stronger claim: if self-governance is an unalienable right, and informed citizenship is a prerequisite of self-governance, then access to honest civic journalism is itself a right. This reframes the entire enterprise — from a media company doing good work to an institution fulfilling a democratic obligation. The Declaration provides the foundation. Build on it explicitly.

IV. What the Founders Unanimously Endorsed

The Three-Foundation Structure. All five found the convergence of the Declaration, the salutogenic paradigm, and Constitutional AI to be genuinely original and intellectually powerful. Jefferson called the fusion “natural and generative.” Franklin noted the operational specificity. This architecture is the Constitution’s distinctive contribution.

Article X — the First 1000 Days. Every Founder who engaged with it recognized this as the most original element. Madison called it “a constitutional protection for those without political voice.” Jefferson called it “a profound contribution to democratic theory.” The three-layer tracking system was universally admired. This is Moonshot Press’s singular innovation. Protect it, develop it, and make it the signature commitment that distinguishes the platform from everything else in American journalism.

The Principle That AI Recommends but Never Decides. Adams identified this as “the single most important sentence in your document.” The human editorial override is the Constitution’s deepest structural commitment. Every future design decision should be tested against it.

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This document was prepared for the Publisher of Moonshot Press in the 250th year of the American republic.

The Founders speak here through historical imagination, informed by their documented writings, temperaments, and philosophies.

Their counsel is offered in the spirit they would have recognized: frank, substantive, and addressed to thinking adults.

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JOIN THE DELIBERATION

Your Voice Shapes This Constitution

Send your thoughts, questions, and suggested revisions to the Moonshot Press team. Every substantive comment will be read, considered, and — where it strengthens the Constitution — incorporated.

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These aren’t the warnings of fringe alarmists. These are sober voices from inside the financial establishment—people whose profession requires calibrated assessments of risk. When they say America is one step away from Stage 6 in the historical cycle of societal breakdown, we should pay attention.

But as a psychiatrist who has spent years thinking about how emotions shape behavior, I want to offer something these economic analyses often miss: the central role of passion, and how understanding it might be our most important tool for prevention.

Passion Is the Ignition

Dalio’s framework emphasizes structural forces—debt, inequality, the erosion of bipartisanship. These matter enormously. The wealthiest 1% now hold 31% of America’s net worth, up from 23% in 1989. The bottom 50% watched their share shrink to just 2.5%. When people feel the system is fundamentally unfair, conflict follows. History shows this pattern repeatedly: the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and others.

But the structure alone doesn’t ignite. What ignites is passion.

Friedberg put his finger on something essential: “Everyone I speak to is activated emotionally.” This activation isn’t a side effect—it’s the mechanism. Polarization isn’t merely about political disagreement; it’s about the emotional quality of that disagreement. When political difference becomes existential threat, when the other side stops being fellow citizens with different views and becomes enemies, the guardrails start to fail.

In my clinical work, I’ve seen how emotions drive behavior far more powerfully than logic or even self-interest. Fear contracts our thinking. Anger demands action. Contempt dehumanizes. These are ancient neural systems, designed for survival in a world of immediate physical threats. They served us well on the savanna. They serve us poorly when the “threat” is a neighbor with a different political bumper sticker.

The tech platforms that mediate so much of our discourse have become passion amplifiers. They’re optimized for engagement, and nothing engages like outrage. Every day, millions of Americans have their fears stoked, their anger validated, their contempt reinforced—not because any human decided this was good for democracy, but because the algorithm found it was good for clicks.

2026: Renewal or Reckoning

America will mark its 250th birthday in 2026. This timing feels almost providential—a moment when we could either descend further into conflict or choose renewal.

I’ve devoted the last chapter of my professional life to this question. After decades as a psychiatrist, I pivoted to what I call civic entrepreneurship—founding Moonshot Press and directing Project 2026, a democratic renewal initiative timed to this anniversary. Some colleagues think this an odd career move. I see it as a natural extension of the same work: understanding what makes human beings flourish, and creating conditions that support it.

The founders who gathered in Philadelphia 250 years ago understood something we’ve partly forgotten: that self-government requires emotional discipline. They knew history. They knew that democracies tend to destroy themselves through faction, passion, and the corrosion of common purpose. They built institutions designed to slow passion down, to force deliberation, to require coalition.

But institutions alone can’t save us if the people who inhabit them have lost the civic temperament those institutions require.

Neither Denial Nor Despair

It would be easy—and perhaps understandable—to respond to these warnings with either denial or despair. Neither helps.

The denial response says: “Civil war? In America? That’s hyperbolic.” But Dalio isn’t predicting armies clashing on battlefields. He’s describing a society where different factions become willing to inflict maximum pain on each other, where the peaceful transfer of power becomes contested, where political violence becomes normalized. We’ve already seen early signs of this trajectory.

The despair response says: “What can any individual do against such vast forces?” But here’s where my clinical background offers some hope. Individual actions matter precisely because passions spread through social contagion. One person’s calm can reduce another’s anxiety. One act of bridge-building creates permission for others. Movements begin with what John Paul Lederach calls “pockets”—small communities where people model different ways of engaging.

This is why I do this work. Not because I’m certain it will succeed, but because the alternative—waiting passively while the forces of fragmentation gain strength—is unacceptable.

Building Arks in a Time of Storm

Project 2026 operates on a simple premise: democracy requires democrats. Not partisans of the Democratic Party, but citizens who have internalized the habits, skills, and dispositions that self-government requires. We need what I call salutogenic democracy—a framework that emphasizes creating civic health, not just preventing civic disease.

This means treating citizens as thinking adults rather than audiences to be mobilized. It means journalism that equips people for participation rather than merely reports on conflict. It means bridging divides not through empty calls for “civility” but through the hard work of finding shared interests that make cooperation rational.

We’re focusing on early childhood development—what we call the “First 1000 Days”—because democratic capacity begins in the formative period when children develop the neurological foundations for emotional regulation, empathy, and trust. We’re focusing on rural-urban divides because these geographic fault lines track dangerously close to our political ones. We’re starting to work in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, and places like it, because real change happens locally before it happens nationally.

None of this guarantees success. Dalio may be right that we’re past the point of return. But his framework also identifies an alternative path: “rise above it and realize that our common good is going to necessitate us dealing with it so that what works for most people is going to work.”

For the Children Born Today

I have no illusions about the difficulty of what we face. The structural forces Dalio describes—the debt, the inequality, the technological disruption—don’t disappear because people decide to be nicer to each other. The passions that threaten us have deep roots in genuine grievances.

But I’ve also seen, in clinical practice and in civic life, how human beings can transform. We are not prisoners of our passions. We have the capacity to recognize when our emotions are being manipulated, to pause before reacting, to seek understanding before condemning. These capacities can be cultivated. They can be taught. They can spread.

The 250th anniversary of America’s founding is not magic. But it is an opportunity—a natural moment for reflection on who we’ve been and who we might become. Whether we seize it or squander it depends on choices that millions of us will make, individually and together, in the months and years ahead.

I’ve chosen to spend whatever professional years I have left on this work. Not because I’m optimistic—the evidence makes optimism difficult—but because I believe the stakes demand engagement regardless of odds. The children born today, on this day when we debate whether civil war awaits them, deserve adults who tried.

They also deserve adults who acted together.

If what you’ve read here resonates—if you believe that preventing civil conflict is work worth doing, and that 2026 represents a genuine opportunity for renewal—I invite you to learn more about Project 2026 and join us. We need physicians, teachers, journalists, parents, business leaders, and citizens of every political persuasion who are willing to build bridges rather than burn them. This isn’t work any of us can do alone. But together, we might just prove Dalio’s grimmer predictions wrong.

Learn about our plans with Project 2026 and how to get involved

A. Framing the Current AI Debate in Newsrooms

Artificial intelligence is currently sweeping through newsrooms globally, prompting an industry-wide self-examination regarding its potential and its numerous pitfalls.Traditional news organizations are increasingly leveraging tools from tech giants like OpenAI and Google to streamline processes that historically consumed countless hours of manual labor. This widespread adoption is driven primarily by the need for efficiency and scale. AI excels at analyzing immense data sets, organizing notes, checking grammar, and suggesting potential headlines, automating work that is deemed routine rather than insightful.

Examples of successful efficiency gains abound. The Associated Press, for instance, used AI tools to rapidly sort through tens of thousands of pages of documents related to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy. This made the documents searchable and summarized them, a task that likely saved reporters “days’ worth of work”.¹ Similarly, a reporter for CalMatters utilized an AI tool, Digital Democracy, to track every word, donation, and vote taken in the California legislature, successfully identifying that Democratic lawmakers were killing bills by simply refraining from voting. Axios, the Beltway publication, has been outspokenly pro-AI, experimenting with the technology to automate news roundups for its local newsletters, using ChatGPT to find the most relevant news stories of the day, with human oversight.¹ As the chief operating officer of Axios explained, these efforts are not aimed at cutting quality corners, but rather at finding the “best, fastest way” to handle anything that is not defined as “human expertise”.

However, this rush toward technological streamlining is accompanied by a pervasive shadow of risk and fear. Concerns dominate the conversation, focusing intensely on job displacement in an already shrinking market. Newsroom unions, such as The NewsGuild, are actively working on dozens of collective bargaining agreements related to job security and establishing guardrails for AI usage, seeking legally enforceable protections where formal regulations are absent. Furthermore, the speed of automation has led to embarrassing errors, even in top publications like Bloomberg, which had to issue dozens of corrections after an experiment with AI-generated summaries, including one summary that misrepresented a trade surplus as a deficit.Looming large over the entire industry is the complex legal battle over copyright infringement, exemplified by The New York Times‘s lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, claiming that original news content was used without authorization to train large language models.

B. The AI Debate as a Symptom of Mission Drift

The immediate industry response to the emergence of generative AI—a focus on efficiency, cost-cutting, job protection, and liability prevention—is fundamentally revealing. This narrow debate suggests that the underlying business model, which has been in crisis for decades, is dictating technological adoption, rather than the core journalistic mission. Since the internet upended the business, laying waste to classified advertising and siphoning away readers to social media, media executives have sought technological solutions to financial problems. They are eager to avoid being “flat-footed in the face of the technology transformation” again.

If the primary, foundational purpose of journalism is, as articulated by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, “to provide citizens with the information they need to be free and self-governing,” then the industry’s priority should be determining how AI can deepen the quality and civic utility of journalism.² Instead, the debate is largely operational, fixated on whether AI is a “tool or a journalist,” failing to rise to the philosophical question of mission amplification.

If traditional news organizations use AI simply to produce the same sensationalized, conflict-driven, and partisan content faster and cheaper, the only guaranteed outcome will be the acceleration of the current democratic and trust crisis. The technology itself is neutral; however, the intent behind its application exposes the true mission. The current conversation, steeped in automation anxieties and legal disputes, is not about fulfilling journalism’s democratic mandate; it is about protecting existing institutional structures and revenue streams.

II. Journalism’s Foundational Crisis: From Self-Governance to Partisan Spectacle

A. The Erosion of the Democratic Mandate

A free press has always been understood as the cornerstone of any functioning democracy, charged with informing the public, holding power accountable, and fostering civic engagement. This original contract stipulates that journalism’s purpose is to enable citizen self-governance.

However, the media landscape of the past decade has exposed significant shortcomings, characterized by a prevailing tendency to prioritize sensationalism over substance. This failure to adhere to the core democratic mandate has created a crisis of public confidence. Data confirms this profound erosion of trust: overall trust in information derived from national news organizations has dropped significantly—by 20 percentage points since 2016.

Compounding this loss of trust is the severe political polarization that defines the contemporary media environment. Republicans and Democrats are increasingly relying on “two nearly inverse news media environments”. This segmentation means that citizens across the political spectrum are consuming information that reinforces their established biases, contributing to a fractured public discourse. When media outlets cater to these polarized preferences, they inevitably fail to foster the shared civic reality necessary for collective problem-solving and self-governance. The media must do better than merely facilitating partisan consumption.

B. The Triumph of Partisanship Over Truth

The crisis runs deeper than mere sensationalism or polarization; it speaks to a fundamental cognitive challenge inherent in the human consumption of information. Research demonstrates that the public at large often tends to prioritize partisanship over truth when evaluating news. This tendency holds across demographics, including education levels and reasoning ability, showing that people engage in active “resistance to inconvenient truths”. For instance, studies show that people were more likely to disbelieve information that was factually true if it challenged their political worldview.

This finding profoundly challenges the traditional journalistic model of simply providing objective facts. If the mere transmission of objective data is insufficient because citizens are psychologically predisposed to reject information that contradicts their political identity, then the role of journalism cannot remain confined to data transfer. It must evolve into a complex practice of facilitating cognitive processing and civic synthesis.

The goal must necessarily shift from simply “informing” (fact delivery) to “empowering” (actionable insight). This structural requirement demands a new model of journalism—one designed explicitly to counter inherent confirmation bias by focusing on systemic, interdisciplinary analysis and solutions that transcend the partisan binary. Media that continues to prioritize the coverage of conflict and partisan horse-race politics actively reinforces the cognitive bias toward alignment.A successful future media model must be structurally designed to break this cycle, thereby facilitating true democratic resilience.

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I’m Shimon Waldfogel, the founder of Project 2026 and the publisher of Moonshot Press. I’m excited to introduce you to a project that is close to my heart—a transformative experiment designed to empower us as citizens to address the pressing challenges facing our nation today.

Moonshot Press and Project 2026: We the People, Reclaiming the Role of the Citizen

More than a decade ago, I found myself increasingly troubled by a simple but urgent question: why, in the wealthiest nation on earth, do so many Americans struggle to access, afford, and truly benefit from our healthcare system? As a psychiatrist by training and a citizen by conviction, I came to realize that meaningful change would never flow solely from the clinics or the boardrooms—it had to be born in the political arena. So I made citizen engagement my hobby, my calling, and ultimately, my life’s work.

Out of that commitment, Moonshot Press and Project 2026 were born. What began as a blog—Shrink the Government—quickly grew into a comprehensive framework for commenting on political events through a psychological lens. Alongside my continuing focus on healthcare reform, I dove headlong into the deeper currents of our democracy: its philosophical foundations, its institutional “DNA,” and the pathologies that threaten to tear it apart. Every book I read, every lecture I attended, every conversation I had became another building block in my understanding—and in the network of fellow travelers I call my “heroes.”

One guidepost emerged above all others: James Madison. Alarmed by the centrifugal forces of faction and the fragility of our young republic, Madison marshaled reason, principle, and compromise to design a government that could endure. His work on the Constitutional Convention—and the revolutionary idea that the people themselves would ratify their own government—remains the clearest blueprint for how citizen sovereignty can outlast the ambitions of any one leader or interest group.

Today, Americans face an unprecedented array of crises—declining trust in Congress, an increasingly powerful president who is breaking constitutional norms, a broken immigration and election system, staggering inequality, an opioid epidemic, the rise of AI, and more. We see a political class beholden to big donors and special interests, while the public’s voice grows ever fainter. It’s here that Project 2026 picks up the fight. From our citizens4health platform (HealthyPhilly, Montco Health for All, HospitalWatch.US) to the reborn Moonshot Press —now a full-fledged activist agenda—we’re developing “The Case Presentation” and “My Political Tool Box for the 21st Century.” Our first focus: building civic muscle by focusing on the First 1000 Days of Life: The Next Generation of Americans.

At its heart, Project 2026 is an ambitious, multi-year experiment moonshot, reclaiming the centrality of “We the People.” Rooted in the Preamble’s call “to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, … promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty,” and inspired by the Declaration’s promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, we’re exploring how the government——can become once again a source of national healing. And more effectively achieve the purpose of facilitating citizen well being. It can be different. It must be different.

I invite anyone who believes that citizen action can revive our democracy—and remake our healthcare, our institutions, and our shared future—to join us in this daring endeavor. Together, we’ll build the tools, forge the connections, and fortify the civic muscles we need to ensure that, in 2026 and beyond, America finally lives up to its founding promise.

Why Project 2026 Matters

Two hundred and fifty years after the Declaration of Independence boldly declared that “all human beings are created equal,” the United States still grapples with fulfilling that promise. Inequality, polarization, technological disruption, and fragmented public discourse continue to challenge our democratic fabric. Yet at the core of Project 2026 lies a steadfast faith in popular sovereignty, echoing the Declaration’s principle that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. By fostering public engagement, education, and cooperation, we can preserve a healthy, equitable, and vibrant democracy.

Project 2026 Q&A

1. What is Project 2026? Project 2026 is a visionary initiative aiming to harness and invigorate the ideals of the US Declaration of Independence, particularly focusing on democracy, opportunity, and citizenship, as we approach the 250th anniversary of the declaration. It seeks to enhance democratic engagement, increase opportunities, and strengthen civic participation across various communities.

2. Project 2026: Why? Project 2026 addresses contemporary challenges in maintaining and nurturing a healthy democracy. It responds to the urgent need for revitalized civic engagement and equality of opportunity, aiming to ensure that the founding principles of the nation continue to thrive and adapt to modern needs.

3. Project 2026: Vision? The vision of Project 2026 is to create a democracy that is continually refreshed by active citizen participation, where every citizen has the tools to thrive and every voice matters. To facilitate citizen flourishing along the life course.

4. Project 2026: Mission? The mission of Project 2026 is to reinforce the nation’s commitment to the principles of equality, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It focuses on empowering citizens, fostering a culture of informed participation, and ensuring that opportunities are accessible to all.

5. Who is behind Project 2026? Project 2026 is spearheaded by Moonshot Press and a network of collaborators from various sectors including academia, non-profit organizations, and community groups, all committed to renewing the democratic spirit.

6. What is the inspiration for the project? The project draws inspiration from the American creed and the philosophical underpinnings of the US Declaration of Independence, aiming to embody and extend these principles into contemporary civic life.

7. What are the goals of Project 2026? The goals include increasing civic engagement, enhancing public understanding of democratic values, and creating practical opportunities for citizens to influence and participate in the political process.

8. What are the core values? Core values are democracy, opportunity, and citizenship, emphasizing inclusivity, equality, and active participation.

Our Guiding Pillars: Project 2026 isn’t just an aspiration—it’s also a practical roadmap for nurturing a society where:

Democracy – Power genuinely flows from the governed, ensuring equitable representation and meaningful participation for everyone.

Opportunity – Every person, regardless of background, has a chance to develop their talents and pursue their aspirations in a fair and inclusive environment.

Citizenship – Civic engagement becomes an integral part of daily life, extending well beyond the voting booth and inviting all Americans to collaborate in shaping our collective future.

9. What is the idea behind Project 2026? The idea is to reinvigorate American democracy by embedding its foundational values more deeply into everyday practices and to mobilize citizens towards greater participation and responsibility.

10. What is your theory of change? The theory of change for Project 2026 revolves around the belief that educated and engaged citizens are the cornerstone of a vibrant democracy. By providing tools, knowledge, and platforms for engagement, the project anticipates a shift towards a more active and informed citizenry. The project addresses the gap between ideals and the current national state.

11. How does Project 2026 work? It works through a series of interconnected initiatives that include educational programs, public dialogues, policy advocacy, and the development of digital tools to facilitate engagement and understanding.

12. What are you going to do? Initiatives include developing educational materials, hosting workshops and forums, engaging in policy advocacy, and creating platforms that facilitate civic engagement and public discourse.

13. What are the components of the project? Components include educational outreach, community engagement programs, digital platforms for civic interaction, and collaborative projects with various stakeholders.

Moonshot Press: Our Public Voice

Supporting these efforts is Moonshot Press, a reimagined media initiative dedicated to amplifying stories of local ingenuity and civic collaboration. Rather than chasing sensational headlines, Moonshot Press prioritizes constructive discourse and strategic thinking—helping citizens reconnect with the deeper rhythms of democracy and inspiring fresh energy to tackle urgent national challenges.

Thrive in Montco PA:A Model for Local Engagement and Impact

Project 2026 Utilizes Montgomery County, PA, as a pilot initiative to demonstrate how deeply engaged citizens can influence meaningful change at the community level, with the potential to inspire national progress.

The Institute for Salutogenesis

“Salus Populi Suprema Lex”: The Health of the People is the Supreme Law

A core aspect of Project 2026 is our commitment to health creation—a salutogenic approach that looks beyond treating illness to fostering overall well-being for individuals and communities.

Together, Let’s Build a Brighter Future

As we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, it is time to redefine our commitment to those founding ideals. Moonshot Press is a call to action for everyone who believes in making democracy work better for all. Let us honor the legacy of our founders by being the architects of a future that upholds the ideals of liberty, equality, and justice for all.

Thank you for joining us on this important journey.

Warm regards,

Shimon Waldfogel
Founder Project 2026

Publisher Moonshot Press

P.S. Believe in a vibrant, engaged democracy? Please share this invitation with friends and family to help expand our community of active citizens.

Learn more about our plans for Moonshot Press.

A Tribute to Inspiration

The creation of Moonshot Press is dedicated to the memory of my mother, Perla Rochman Waldfogel. She was a remarkable individual whose life exemplified the profound impact one person can have in shaping a better world. Her unwavering commitment to justice and her compassionate activism have been the guiding forces behind this endeavor.

Perla's life was marked by extraordinary challenges, as she navigated the harsh realities of totalitarian regimes, prisons, and labor camps in Eastern Europe during the tumultuous first half of the 20th century. Her resilience in the face of such adversity serves as a powerful testament to the impact that individual citizens can have. Her experiences are a constant reminder of our collective responsibility to forge a more equitable and just society.