• The babies of the Moonshot Class of 2026 are AI-generated composites and images, not real individuals

• The communities are real places, drawn on through AI-facilitated data and research, used as representative settings rather than precise portraits of those localities

• They serve as a vehicle to understand varied American experiences from birth

• Readers uncomfortable with AI-generated content may choose not to engage

• Feedback to improve accuracy is welcomed

.Every child is born with equal worth. Not every child is born into equal opportunity.

That gap is the question underneath everything we’re building in this section of Moonshot Press.

It sounds like a simple question. It might be the hardest one a democracy can ask.

We tend to talk about babies as a private matter — a family’s joy, a family’s job. And of course they are. Parents, grandparents, neighbors, teachers, doctors, and faith communities all shape a child’s earliest life.

But the first years are not only private. They are public. They are, in a very real sense, infrastructure.

The first 1,000 days are where the future begins

From conception to a child’s second birthday, the human brain does most of its foundational wiring. Nutrition, sleep, housing, clean air, responsive caregiving, a parent’s own mental health, a sense of safety — all of it doesn’t just surround a baby. It builds the baby.

A child growing up with steady support isn’t receiving a luxury. She’s receiving developmental infrastructure — the same way a bridge or a road is infrastructure. A child growing up amid chronic stress, food insecurity, or unstable housing isn’t simply “less fortunate.” He’s being asked to build a life on a shakier foundation, through no choice of his own.

That foundation matters far past infancy. Babies become students. Students become workers, parents, neighbors — the citizens who will someday inherit, sustain, or fail to sustain, this country. So this isn’t just a parenting question or a pediatric one. It’s a civic one: can America build the conditions that let every child flourish, regardless of ZIP code, income, race, or family circumstance?

Meet the Moonshot Class of 2026

To make that question concrete, we’re introducing the Moonshot Class of 2026 — five composite children, born into five different American realities. They aren’t real individuals; their stories are composites built to help us see real conditions clearly, in communities that are real places.

They’re all born under the same flag. They don’t all inherit the same America.

• Mateo — San Antonio, Texas

• Amare — South Side, Chicago

• Eva — Tompkinsville, Kentucky

• Emma — Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts

• Liam — Somerset, Pennsylvania

Emma is born into stability — safe streets, excellent care, parents with time and money to spare. Liam’s family works hard and loves fiercely, but has almost no financial margin. Amare arrives into a community rich in culture and kinship, carrying the weight of decades of disinvestment. Eva is born in rural America, where distance itself — from a pediatrician, from childcare, from a grocery store — becomes its own risk factor. Mateo is a U.S. citizen from his first breath, but his family’s mixed immigration status can make even routine services feel dangerous to seek out.

Each of their stories asks us to see America from day one of life — not as a statistic, but as a child.

Beyond treating what goes wrong

Most of our healthcare system is built to respond once something has already gone wrong. That matters — we need excellent care for children who are sick or struggling.

But we’re starting from a different question: what creates health in the first place? What helps a new parent stay emotionally present? What makes healthy food easy to reach? What makes a neighborhood feel safe, and healthcare feel trustworthy? Our job isn’t only to prevent harm. It’s to grow the conditions that let a child actually flourish.

The People’s Commission to Make Our Children Healthy

If the Moonshot Class helps us see the question, the People’s Commission to Make Our Children Healthy is where we work through the answer — together, in public.

This is a citizen-led effort, not a panel of experts speaking down to everyone else. Parents, nurses, doulas, teachers, clergy, local officials, and neighbors who simply care about kids are all part of the conversation: What do babies actually need? What do families need to provide it? What should communities, schools, hospitals, and governments each be responsible for? What should we stop tolerating?

The goal isn’t another report gathering dust. It’s building the shared understanding — and the practical next steps — that make change possible.

ADA: help finding your way

We’re also building ADA, the Whole Person Health and Wellbeing Assistant — an AI-powered guide to help families navigate the maze of the first 1,000 days. Not a replacement for your pediatrician or your community, but a way to help you ask the right questions and find the help that already exists near you: Is my baby’s development on track? How do I apply for WIC or home visiting? What are the warning signs I shouldn’t ignore? What support exists in my own ZIP code?

No family should have to become a bureaucratic expert just to get their baby the basics. Until that’s no longer true, we want to make the path a little clearer.

Join us

The newborn has no political power — no vote, no lobbyist, no lawyer. That’s exactly why the newborn is the test of what we actually believe.

Every generation inherits a world it didn’t choose, and hands off a world it helped shape. The children born this year will grow up amid AI, economic change, and real uncertainty. They’ll need more than money — they’ll need health, safety, belonging, and a democracy that keeps its promises.

So we’re starting with the question, in public, together: what do we owe the next generation?

Sign up for updates on the People’s Commission and the First 1,000 Days work →

Read the five stories, share them, and start the conversation where you live:

Meet Mateo · Meet Amare · Meet Eva · Meet Emma · Meet Liam

About The Moonshot Class of 2026

The Moonshot Class of 2026 tracks how policy shapes life trajectories from the earliest days. In the months ahead, we’ll follow Emma, Liam, Amare, Eva, and Mateo—examining the systems that support or fail them, the research that explains why the first 1,000 days matter, and the choices that could change their futures.

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Changing the world has proven harder than I assumed when I first started building Project 2026 and Moonshot Press. Over the past year, I’ve been developing an updated answer to a question I keep coming back to: how does one person actually “reclaim” their role as a citizen — not as a spectator of American life, but as someone who helps shape it?

In the coming months, Moonshot Press is relaunching Project 2026 as the center of everything we cover. This is a year-long initiative to build civic infrastructure disguised as tradition — not just for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, but for the 250 years after it. We’re creating the rituals, practices, and tools that help ordinary citizens do the hardest work democracy asks of anyone: staying in relationship across profound differences.

This is a short overview of where things stand, and what we’re focused on for the next six months.

How Moonshot Press Works Now

Moonshot Press has changed shape over the past six months. It now runs as an AI-facilitated newsroom, and the pace of change in AI over that same window has reshaped what that actually means in practice. Three things anchor how we work:

• The Moonshot Press Constitution — our public commitment to how we operate, including how we use AI.

• The Newsroom Engine — the editorial and production system that lets a small team produce at a scale that would otherwise require a much larger staff.

• Our Use of AI — governed by one standing rule: AI recommends, humans decide. Whenever AI meaningfully shapes something we publish, we say so.

Four Questions We’re Spending the Next Six Months On

1. What does rising polarization put at risk — and what can we actually do about it?

Some Americans are now asking a version of this question in its starkest form: what would you do if you believed civil war was possible? We take that fear seriously without accepting it as inevitable.

Journey from Contempt to Connection is our umbrella series on this — a practical and spiritual roadmap for navigating turbulent times, built around the roots of divisiveness and what individuals, communities, and the nation can actually do about it. Its first major strand is Building Arks, Weaving Bridges, an invitation to meet this moment not with despair but with courage, clarity, and commitment. The first concrete piece of that work is A Civic Ritual for Thanksgiving: Gratitude in the Age of Contempt — a ritual for the one day when Americans across every divide still sit down together. It gives families structure for telling the full American story, asking hard questions, staying in the room when every instinct says to leave, and practicing gratitude in an age that rewards contempt instead.

2. How do we protect and advance the principles the founders gave us?

Or, put plainly: what do we owe the Constitution, and what does it still owe us?

The Declaration to Constitution Project is an eight-essay public journey running between Independence Day and Constitution Day — not a law course, and not the whole of Project 2026, but a focused attempt to make one part of the American experiment legible: why the republic was built the way it was, how it was designed to manage conflict, why that design is under strain now, and what self-government asks of us today. Alongside it, The Case of the US Political System is a deeper citizen exploration of where the system stands and what’s being done to empower citizens within it. And because technology is now inseparable from that question, The People’s Commission for Technology and the American Future is working through what a new social contract looks like for an AI-disrupted economy — with two working drafts, The Democracy Stack and The American Humanity Trust, already open for public comment.

3. What do we owe the next generation?

This is the question underneath our entire First 1,000 Days body of work. We know that most of the human brain’s architecture is built before age two — which means the conditions of early childhood aren’t only a family concern, they’re civic infrastructure.

Meet the Moonshot Class of 2026 is our editorial series on what the children born this year inherit, and what that inheritance obligates the rest of us to do. The People’s Commission to Make Our Children Healthy is the deliberative counterpart — a citizen body working through what those first 1,000 days actually require. And ADA, the Whole Person Health and Wellbeing Assistant, is a practical AI-powered guide we’re building for families navigating that same window, grounded in the idea that the job isn’t only to treat what goes wrong — it’s to actively grow the conditions for a child to flourish.

4. Why doesn’t the richest nation on earth guarantee its citizens the healthcare they need?

That’s the plain version of the question. The more constructive one is: what would it take to fix it?

We’re working to shift American healthcare from a system built to treat disease after the fact to one built to create health before it’s needed — whole-person care that treats physical, mental, and social health as one system, with prevention and equitable access built in rather than added on. We call this our Salutogenic Healthcare System, and it’s the organizing focus of the Institute for Salutogenesis, where you can find the fuller model at mysaluto.org.

Building the Toolbox for Democracy

You already know why Moonshot Press exists — the fuller story is always on our About page and in the letter from the publisher. What’s new is the toolbox we’re building to make all four of the questions above actionable rather than just discussable:

• Ecosystem Tools & Tracers — interactive maps and data that make your political landscape visible.

• Citizen Briefs — concise documents that reframe a hard challenge as an actual roadmap.

• Case Presentations — a clinical, diagnostic format borrowed from medicine and applied to societal problems.

• Deliberative Forums — sustained dialogue among citizens, experts, and policymakers, not one-off town halls.

• Checklists — simple, concrete steps that demystify civic engagement for people who don’t know where to start.

Underneath all of it sits Useful General Intelligence, our governing philosophy for how intelligence — human and artificial — should be brought to bear on complex social problems, and The Democracy Stack, our framework for treating democracy not as a single mechanism but as a layered system: principles, institutions, law, civic virtue, public knowledge, and generational renewal, each depending on the others.

On the Ground: Thrive in Montco, PA

Everything above is being tested first in one place, in person, with real neighbors: Thrive in Montco, PA, our hyperlocal proof of concept. Its current centerpiece is the Montco PA People’s Commission to Make Our Children Healthy, a citizen-led body investigating what Montgomery County owes the children born here in their first 1,000 days — and building the actual recommendations to deliver it. This is the one track that happens in a room, not on a screen. If you’re local, this is the one to show up for physically.

What We’re Asking of You

• Contribute your time, expertise, or talent. If you have skills in research, writing, design, organizing, or facilitation, we have a place for it — reply to this letter and tell us what you’d like to help build.

• Participate in an event. Watch for launch announcements for each initiative above; most are virtual, and Thrive in Montco is in person.

• Use our materials. The Citizen Briefs and Checklists are built to be used, not just read — take them into your own community conversations.

• Follow the journey. Subscribe to our Substack and follow us on social media for updates as each piece launches.

• Spread the word. If someone in your life has been waiting for democracy to ask more of them, forward this along.

“The primary purpose of journalism is to provide citizens with the information they need to be free and self-governing.” — The Elements of Journalism

“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.” — Thomas Jefferson

Warm regards, with hope and resolve,

Shimon Waldfogel, MD

Founder & Publisher, Moonshot Press Director, Project 2026

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“The Declaration names the promise. The Constitution builds the architecture. Citizens keep both alive.”

Between Two Dates

Between two dates lies the unfinished story of the American experiment.

On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence announced a revolutionary moral claim: human beings possess equal moral worth, hold rights that government does not create, and retain the authority to alter a government that becomes destructive of those purposes.

On September 17, 1787, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention completed a very different kind of document. The Constitution did not repeat the Declaration’s soaring language. It attempted the more difficult work of organizing public power among imperfect human beings divided by interests, ambitions, regions, beliefs, and passions.

The Declaration named the promise. The Constitution built an architecture.

Between them lies a question for every generation: Are our institutions serving the purposes that give them legitimacy—and are citizens capable of keeping the two aligned?

Declaration to Constitution follows that question from Independence Day to Constitution Day. It is an eight-essay public journey for citizens, not a comprehensive course in constitutional law and not the whole of Project 2026. Its aim is to make one part of the American experiment more understandable: why the republic was created, how it was designed to manage conflict, why that design is under strain, and what self-government requires of us now.

Why I’m Doing This

I have spent much of my professional life as a physician and psychiatrist listening to what fear, uncertainty, fragmentation, and loss of control do to people. Those conditions can narrow judgment, turn disagreement into threat, and leave individuals feeling helpless inside systems they cannot understand or influence.

Clinical work also teaches a more hopeful lesson. Agency can return when people understand what is happening, find a manageable path forward, reconnect action to meaning, and act with others.

This series applies that discipline—not a psychiatric diagnosis—to civic life. Political disagreement is not an illness, and fellow citizens are not patients to be labeled. But public problems do require careful observation, history, competing explanations, attention to protective factors, and a willingness to reject cures that may be worse than the condition.

James Madison becomes one of our principal guides because he approached republican government in that spirit. He studied earlier failures, examined faction and passion, rejected the destruction of liberty as a remedy, and helped design institutions intended to make conflict governable.

The Journey

Each installment takes up one principal question.

Madison the Clinician

How can a free society manage faction and passion without destroying the liberty that gives them life?

The Promise and the Problem

Why did the Declaration’s principles of equality, rights, and consent require governing institutions?

Diagnosing the Modern Body Politic

How have concentrated power, professionalized influence, fragmented media, accelerated digital passions, local civic decline, and weakened civic formation disrupted the Madisonian balance?

The Constitutional Treatment Plan

How were representation, checks and balances, federalism, and the extended republic intended to work together?

The People Are the Sovereign

What information, rights, and habits of judgment must citizens possess to supervise public power?

Passions Against Passions in the Age of AI

Will artificial intelligence deepen manipulation and faction, or enlarge the citizen’s capacity to understand and judge?

Reclaiming the Role of Citizen

How can people move from political spectatorship to practical civic agency?

The Case of the United States

What does the integrated case reveal about the republic’s diagnosis, resilience, constitutional remedies, and prospects for renewal?

The essays stand alone, but together they form one argument:

The Declaration gives the republic its moral direction.

The Constitution organizes and limits its public power.

Citizens must continually examine the relationship between them.

How the Series Works

The essays are the spine of the series. Each will offer one governing idea, a brief introduction locating it in the larger journey, and one question for readers to carry forward.

Some installments may be accompanied by a Citizen Brief, conversation, or practical tool when that material genuinely helps. Those resources will support the essays; they will not define or delay the series.

The aim is orientation rather than overload. Readers should leave each article better able to understand the constitutional problem, recognize the human and institutional forces involved, and discuss the next question with another citizen.

Publication Calendar and Series Index

Titles may be refined during final editing. This Hub will be updated with links as each article is published.

Act I — The Promise and the Diagnosis

July 21, 2026 — Declaration to Constitution

The public introduction, purpose, series map, and invitation.

July 29, 2026 — Madison the Clinician

Faction, Passion, and the Republican Remedy. Madison approached political conflict as a permanent condition of freedom to be understood and constitutionally managed—not an enemy to be eliminated.

August 5, 2026 —The Promise and the Problem

Why the Declaration Required a Constitution. The Declaration identified the purposes of legitimate government; the constitutional generation confronted the problem of building institutions capable of pursuing them.

August 12, 2026 — Diagnosing the Modern Body Politic

How the Madisonian Balance Was Disrupted. Six interacting changes in power, influence, information, technology, local civic life, and citizen formation now strain the constitutional system.

Act II — The Constitutional Treatment Plan

August 19, 2026 — The Constitutional Treatment Plan

Representation, checks and balances, federalism, and the extended republic as an interdependent architecture for preserving liberty while restraining concentrated power.

Act III — Developing Modern Citizen Capabilities

August 26, 2026 — The People Are the Sovereign

Public opinion, popular information, a free press, constitutional rights, and the knowledge citizens need to supervise government.

September 2, 2026 —Passions Against Passions in the Age of AI

How artificial intelligence may either accelerate manipulation or augment independent citizen judgment.

September 9, 2026 — Reclaiming the Role of Citizen

Citizenship as a practical office: understanding systems, following power, acting with others, and sustaining accountability between elections.

Act IV — The Case and the Handoff

September 16, 2026 — The Case of the United States

Critical, Constitutional, and Treatable. A concise synthesis of the diagnosis, constitutional architecture, modern citizen capabilities, protective factors, and prognosis.

September 17, 2026 — Constitution Day Capstone: A Republic, If We Can Renew It

A concluding public reflection on what the series has revealed and what the work of renewal requires next.

An Invitation to Citizens

You do not need to be a constitutional scholar to enter this series. Bring a question, a lived experience, a willingness to examine evidence, and a commitment to treating fellow citizens as participants in a shared republic.

Read an essay. Discuss it with one other person. Ask where the argument is incomplete. Consider how the issue appears in your own community. Bring evidence that complicates the diagnosis. The series is meant to support inquiry, not demand agreement.

The essential civic movement is simple:

From reaction to understanding.

From understanding to judgment.

From judgment to participation.

From participation to sustained responsibility.

Standards for the Conversation

We will argue with ideas without dehumanizing people. We will distinguish evidence from inference, acknowledge uncertainty, correct errors, and present serious competing interpretations fairly.

We will apply constitutional standards consistently rather than changing them according to which party holds power. We will defend rights across difference, including when those rights are exercised by people whose views we oppose.

We will examine the founding with gratitude and honesty. The constitutional achievement was extraordinary, but the original order accommodated slavery and excluded most people from equal political membership. Renewal does not mean returning uncritically to 1787. It means continuing the work of bringing institutions closer to the Declaration’s promise.

The Republic Is Not a Finished Object

Democracy is not self-executing.

A constitution can distribute authority, but it cannot create trust by itself. It can protect speech, but it cannot guarantee wisdom. It can establish representative institutions, but it cannot make citizens participate. It can slow political passions, but it cannot eliminate them.

The health of a republic depends on a continuing relationship among principles, institutions, information, human development, and citizen capacity.

Between Independence Day and Constitution Day, we invite readers to travel from the promise of the Declaration to the architecture of the Constitution—and then to the responsibilities of citizenship in the twenty-first century.

The American experiment began with the proposition that ordinary people could govern themselves.

Its future still depends on whether we can.

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It declared that human beings are born with inherent dignity. That governments exist to secure life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That ordinary people are not subjects of distant power, but citizens capable of shaping their common future.

The Declaration of Independence was America’s first moonshot.

It was not a technical achievement. It was a moral horizon. It did not say the work was finished. It announced the work that every generation would have to continue.

In 2026, America will mark the 250th anniversary of that Declaration. There will be speeches, fireworks, museum exhibits, commemorations, arguments, and invocations of the founding promise.

But the real test of the anniversary will not be what we say about the Declaration.

It will be whether we are willing to renew it in the lives of the children being born now.

A child born in 2026 will enter life in the 250th year of the American experiment. That child will not remember the ceremonies. But that child will inherit the answer to the question the anniversary places before us:

Do we still mean it?

Do we mean life — enough to protect pregnancy, birth, infancy, nutrition, safety, and health?

Do we mean liberty — enough to create the conditions in which children can develop agency, trust, language, resilience, and the capacity to participate in the world?

Do we mean the pursuit of happiness — enough to support families, strengthen communities, and build the foundations of flourishing from the very beginning of life?

This is the Moonshot Class of 2026: the babies born in America’s 250th year, coming of age in the world we build now.

They are not abstractions. They are not future statistics. They are not merely future workers, consumers, patients, or voters. They are persons of dignity. They are future citizens. They are the living test of whether the promise of the Declaration can be made real in our time.

The Declaration was America’s first moonshot.

The Moonshot Class of 2026 is our test of whether we still mean it.

The Declaration Begins at Birth

The Declaration speaks in universal language: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But for a newborn child, these are not abstractions.

Life begins with a safe pregnancy, a healthy birth, a mother who is cared for, a family that is not abandoned, and a child whose basic needs are met.

Liberty begins with development: the capacity to form secure attachments, regulate stress, explore the world, learn language, develop trust, and gradually become an agent in one’s own life.

The pursuit of happiness begins with the conditions that make flourishing possible: love, safety, nutrition, responsive care, meaningful relationships, stable homes, healthy communities, and institutions that help rather than overwhelm.

A country cannot claim to believe in equal opportunity if a child’s future is shaped too heavily by the accident of birth.

A country cannot claim to believe in life if it cares about birth but not infancy.

A country cannot claim to believe in liberty if millions of children begin life under conditions that undermine their capacity to thrive before they ever enter school.

A country cannot claim to believe in the pursuit of happiness if families are left alone to carry burdens that should be shared by communities, institutions, and public life.

The First 1000 Days — from conception through roughly age two — are where the Declaration becomes developmental reality.

The First 1000 Days Are Where the Future Begins

Every day in America, thousands of babies take their first breath. Each one arrives with astonishing possibility. Each one enters a family, a neighborhood, a healthcare system, a food system, an economy, a media environment, and a democracy.

The First 1000 Days are among the most important windows in human development. During this period, the foundations of brain architecture, emotional security, stress regulation, language, attachment, trust, and lifelong health are taking shape with extraordinary speed.

These days do not determine everything. Human beings are resilient. Families overcome hardship. Later intervention matters. But the earliest years create direction. They build either a sturdy or fragile foundation for what follows.

A nation serious about opportunity cannot begin at kindergarten.

A nation serious about health cannot begin when disease appears.

A nation serious about democracy cannot wait until a young person turns eighteen to ask whether they are ready to participate in civic life.

The First 1000 Days are where health, opportunity, and citizenship begin.

From Healthcare to Salutogenesis

The First 1000 Days Initiative is not only a healthcare project.

It is a salutogenic project.

Salutogenesis means the creation of health. The term comes from medical sociologist Aaron Antonovsky, who asked why some people and communities are able to move toward health even under conditions of stress and adversity. Rather than beginning only with disease, risk, and pathology, salutogenesis asks what helps human beings flourish.

What makes life comprehensible — understandable, coherent, and navigable?

What makes life manageable — supported by resources, relationships, institutions, and practical help?

What makes life meaningful — worthy of investment, commitment, love, and hope?

For the First 1000 Days, this means asking more than whether a baby survives, whether a birth was medically safe, or whether a developmental delay was detected. Those questions matter deeply. But they are not enough.

A salutogenic approach asks:

Does the mother feel accompanied or abandoned?

Can the family understand and navigate the systems meant to help them?

Are parents supported in bonding, feeding, soothing, reading, playing, and responding?

Is the child surrounded by safety, rhythm, voice, touch, nutrition, and love?

Does the community understand that every newborn is part of its common future?

A baby is not simply growing inside a home.

A baby is growing inside an ecosystem.

That ecosystem includes parents and caregivers, pediatricians and obstetricians, grandparents and neighbors, childcare providers and employers, food systems and housing policies, public health departments and libraries, faith communities and local media, transportation systems and digital platforms.

A salutogenic First 1000 Days agenda therefore does not ask only how to reduce infant mortality, preterm birth, developmental delay, maternal depression, food insecurity, or toxic stress — though it must ask all of those things.

It asks what a flourishing beginning looks like.

And then it asks whether America is willing to build it.

What We Owe the Moonshot Class of 2026

We owe them healthy pregnancies and safe births.

We owe them mothers whose physical and mental health are protected.

We owe them fathers and caregivers who are invited into responsibility.

We owe them food, shelter, clean air, safe water, and protection from violence and toxic stress.

We owe them parents who are supported, not abandoned.

We owe them early relationships rich in touch, voice, play, rhythm, language, and love.

We owe them healthcare that sees the whole child in the whole family.

We owe them communities where libraries, pediatricians, obstetricians, childcare providers, faith communities, public agencies, employers, neighbors, and local media understand that babies are not someone else’s concern.

We owe them measurement that matters — not only the tracking of disease and deficits, but indicators of flourishing: attachment, caregiver wellbeing, developmental progress, family stability, food security, social connection, access to care, and community trust.

Most of all, we owe them a country that does not celebrate children in speeches while leaving families to struggle alone.

The Questions That Will Guide the People’s Commission

The People’s Commission begins with questions because democracy begins with questions.

Not questions asked only by experts.

Not questions answered only by agencies.

Not questions translated immediately into partisan talking points.

Questions that citizens can gather around.

What do we, as a society, owe newborns?

What does every family need during the First 1000 Days?

What are the core capabilities that allow a child to flourish?

What are the early markers of a flourishing life?

What conditions make family life more comprehensible, manageable, and meaningful?

What barriers prevent children from receiving the foundation they deserve?

What should communities measure if they want to know whether babies and families are truly thriving?

What roles should parents, clinicians, educators, employers, faith communities, public officials, and neighbors play?

How can local communities create environments where every child has a genuine chance to thrive?

And how can Moonshot Press help citizens see, understand, deliberate, and act?

These are not academic questions. They are founding questions.

They will guide the work of the People’s Commission on the First 1000 Days of Life. They will shape local conversations, citizen briefs, public forums, data dashboards, family stories, policy proposals, and practical tools.

The goal is not simply to produce another report.

The goal is to help America make a promise to the Moonshot Class of 2026 — and then build the systems, communities, and public will required to keep it.

Montgomery County as a Place to Begin

Every national moonshot needs a place where the work becomes real.

Montgomery County, Pennsylvania can be one of those places.

Here, as everywhere, babies are born into very different circumstances. Some families are surrounded by support. Others face quiet struggles with childcare, transportation, food insecurity, maternal mental health, housing costs, fragmented services, or the exhaustion of trying to navigate too much alone.

But Montgomery County also has extraordinary assets: healthcare institutions, pediatricians, obstetricians, schools, libraries, public health agencies, faith communities, civic organizations, local leaders, and families who know what is working and what is not.

The question is whether these assets can become an ecosystem.

Can every expecting family know where to turn?

Can pediatricians, obstetricians, public health agencies, libraries, doulas, home visitors, childcare providers, and community organizations work from a shared map?

Can families help identify the barriers professionals miss?

Can local media tell the story of child and family flourishing in a way that builds trust?

Can Montgomery County become a living laboratory for what a First 1000 Days community looks like?

The moonshot is national.

The work begins locally.

Join the Moonshot

America once declared a moral horizon: that human beings are born with dignity, rights, and the possibility of flourishing.

That mission continues.

The Moonshot Class of 2026 is being born now. Their first 1000 days are not waiting for our politics to become less divided, our systems to become less fragmented, or our public debates to become less exhausted.

Their lives are beginning.

So must our work.

Read the Manifesto of the Moonshot Class of 2026.

Follow and participate in the People’s Commission on the First 1000 Days of Life.

Share this article with someone who cares about children, democracy, health, opportunity, or America’s future.

Ask your community one question:

What would it take for every baby born here to have a genuine chance to flourish?

The first 1000 days are the most important years most of us never remember.

But their impact echoes across a lifetime.

And across a nation.

The question is not whether we can afford to invest in the First 1000 Days.

It is whether a country founded on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness can afford not to.

The Declaration was America’s first moonshot.

The Moonshot Class of 2026 is our test of whether we still mean it.

The future is already being born.

Let us build the world they deserve.

In 1776, America made a radical and timeless promise: that all people are created equal, endowed with unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

As we approach the Semiquincentennial in 2026—the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence—we recognize that for too many, this founding promise has never been met. This truth is not a cause for despair, but a call to action.

Project 2026 is a national experiment in democratic renewal—launched by citizens, for citizens, to fulfill that foundational pledge. Our question is not what went wrong, but how to make the founding promise a vibrant reality for all Americans today.

The Project: Building the Infrastructure for Universal Fulfillment

Project 2026 is building the essential infrastructure for a thriving 21st-century American democracy.

We envision an active, well-informed citizenry engaged in a system that creates the opportunity for every American to flourish. Our mission is to fully realize the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—by empowering citizens with the tools, knowledge, and frameworks to participate meaningfully in public life and thrive across their entire lives.

We believe the answer to this historic challenge isn’t less democracy, but more: more participation, more voices, and more creative problem-solving from everyday Americans.

Our Three Pillars of Citizenship

At the heart of Project 2026 is the commitment to transforming abstract ideals into concrete realities. This means nurturing a civic life where every American is equipped to contribute.

Everything we do rests on three interconnected pillars:

• Democracy: Not just elections, but everyday participation in shaping our collective future.

• Opportunity: Real pathways for all Americans to flourish, regardless of where they start.

• Citizenship: The skills, knowledge, and support to show up meaningfully in public life.

When these three pillars are strong, democracy doesn’t just survive—it thrives. Because democracy is ultimately about people showing up, with purpose and solidarity, to co-create a just and flourishing society.

The Work Ahead: Bridging the Divide

The American democratic project is robust, yet the demands of the 21st century require us to upgrade our civic capacity.

While the challenges of polarization, technological acceleration, and disconnected institutions are real, Project 2026 meets this moment by focusing on building capacity and providing the modern pathways for meaningful contribution. We are creating the infrastructure for 21st-century citizenship.

What We’re Building

Project 2026 is creating the infrastructure for 21st-century citizenship—the tools, knowledge, and platforms that help everyday Americans participate meaningfully in democracy.

Core Initiatives

Moonshot Press — An AI-enhanced media platform that cuts through the noise to deliver accessible policy analysis, compelling civic storytelling, and news that actually helps you engage.

The Citizen Toolbox — Digital tools that make civic action frictionless: personalized recommendations for action, AI-assisted policy analysis, and intelligent matching with opportunities and collaborators.

Deliberative Formats — Structured public conversations and organizing frameworks, such as the Citizen Brief, Medical Case Presentation, and Citizen Commission, that help citizens engage in meaningful dialogue and collective problem-solving.

We The People @ 250 — As America turns 250, we’re reimagining our social contract for the AI age through “Imagine the Constitution in the Age of AI”—a daily exploration that helps citizens reflect on how our founding principles must evolve.

The First 1000 Days Initiative — Real change starts early. We’re empowering communities to support children and families from preconception through age two, recognizing that flourishing begins at life’s earliest stages.

The People’s Commission to Make Our Children Healthy — A grassroots movement where everyday citizens—not just experts—lead the charge on holistic health strategies for America’s children.

The 2026 Election: Critical Issues — Six urgent challenges that demand citizen deliberation: renewing democracy, governing AI, achieving health justice, addressing economic inequality, confronting the addiction crisis, and preparing for future pandemics.

The People’s Department of Government Excellence (PDOGE) — Citizen-led accountability that brings transparency and continuous improvement to public institutions.

Civic Rituals for Modern Citizens — Shared, non-political practices that rebuild the social contract and social connection, helping us remember we’re in this together.

Thrive in Montco PA — Our laboratory for democracy in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, where we’re testing what works in real communities with real people.

How We Work

We combine cutting-edge AI with timeless democratic principles. Our technology doesn’t replace human judgment—it amplifies human voices, making complex policy accessible, facilitating productive dialogue across differences, and connecting citizens with the information and opportunities they need to act.

We believe in deliberation over division. In solutions over outrage. In citizens as leaders, not just voters or consumers.

Who We Are

My name is Shimon Waldfogel. For nearly a decade, I’ve been on a personal journey to understand American democracy’s foundations and reclaim my role as an engaged citizen. That journey revealed something crucial: millions of Americans want to participate more deeply in democracy—they just need better pathways to do it.

Project 2026 grew from that insight. What began as a personal effort to create the blueprint—developing frameworks, building Moonshot Press, and testing ideas—has now reached the point where we need something more. We need you. We’re seeking to engage everyone who shares this vision of democratic renewal, because the work ahead requires not just one person or one team, but a movement of citizens ready to build together.

Our approach draws from political science, complexity theory, behavioral psychology, design thinking, and public health. But our fundamental belief is much older—it’s the radical vision embedded in the Declaration of Independence itself.

This Is Your Invitation

Project 2026 isn’t a top-down reform agenda. It’s a shared platform for public renewal. An infrastructure for the democracy we need. A moonshot for citizenship in the 21st century.

We’re inviting Americans of every age, background, and political belief to join this experiment. Not because we have all the answers, but because you are part of the answer.

The real question isn’t “What’s broken?” It’s this: What audacious future can we build together?

Democracy was never meant to be a finished product handed down from 1776. It’s a promise each generation must pursue—a process of perpetual becoming. The founders launched the experiment. Now it’s our turn to carry it forward.

The best way to prepare for the future is to build it—together.

What’s the Next Step?

• Subscribe: Get the latest policy analysis and civic storytelling from Moonshot Press delivered directly to your inbox.

• Explore: Dig into our initiatives, starting with our periodic reflections in Imagine the Constitution in the Age of AI.

• Join the Movement: Tell us how you want to contribute to the unfinished work of democracy in the comments below.

For a more comprehensive document on Project 2026, interested readers can contact Moonshot Press.

Join the Project 2026 Team

Timeline: Key Milestones

Project 2026 will publicly launch in December 2025 and culminate around the 250th anniversary in 2026. While it is the product of countless contributions and refinements over many years, it remains a work in progress and a shared endeavor—one that welcomes your insights, criticisms, and support as we work to make these timeless ideals a vibrant reality for everyone in the 21st century.

• January 2026: Introducing Moonshot Press

• January 2026: Public Launch of Project 2026

• February 2026: Public Launch of The First 1000 Days of Life

  • The People’s Citizens Commission to Make Our Children Healthy

  • Useful General Intelligence Platform

  • Whole Person Salutogenic Assistant.

• March 2026 Launch The 2026 Election Initiative .

  • The Case of The US Healthcare System

  • The 2026 Election AI Hub: Artificial Intelligence and the Social Contract

• April 2026 Launch of Thrive in Montco PA

  • Civic Rituals for Modern Citizens

• May 2026 : Launch We the People @ 250 ,

  • Imagine the Constitution in the Age of AI

Additional Content

The Project 2026 Website

Project 2025 vs. Project 2026: Compare and Contrast

Project 2026: A Madisonian View

Project 2026 Q&A

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Overview of Project 2026

An interactive graph of the overview can be found by clicking on the image or here

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