More Perfect Union is a progressive American nonprofit media organization founded in February 2021 by Faiz Shakir, former campaign manager for Senator Bernie Sanders' 2020 presidential bid.[1][2]Dedicated to "building power for the working class," it combines investigative journalism, advocacy, and educational content to highlight labor union efforts, corporate accountability, and economic policies favoring workers over executives and shareholders.[3][4]Its signature short videos, often critiquing billionaire influence and anti-union practices, have accumulated over 500 million views across platforms, earning an Emmy Award for a piece on rural voting patterns and nominations for others.[3]The group has influenced Democratic politics, with its content amplified by White House officials and used to mobilize support for union causes, such as during the 2023 United Auto Workers strikes.[2][4]In 2025, More Perfect Union funded billboard campaigns opposing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), arguing such reforms would harm public services and national parks, reflecting its blend of reporting with direct policy advocacy.[5]As advocacy journalism rooted in left-wing priorities like economic redistribution and union empowerment, its work prioritizes narrative alignment with progressive goals over detached analysis, consistent with Shakir's background in partisan organizing.[6][1]
Constitutional Origins
Preamble Context and Adoption
The Preamble to the United StatesConstitution opens with the declarative statement: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity."[7] The phrase "in Order to form a more perfect Union" serves as the second clause, encapsulating a core aim of the framers to enhance national cohesion beyond prior arrangements.[8]This wording emerged from the efforts of the Committee of Style and Arrangement, appointed by the Constitutional Convention on August 30, 1787, to consolidate and stylize the convention's resolutions into final form.[9]Gouverneur Morris, the committee's chairman and a Pennsylvania delegate, primarily authored the Preamble's polished version, transforming an initial draft that enumerated individual states into a unified invocation of "We the People of the United States" while specifying six objectives, commencing with the pursuit of a more perfect Union.[8] The committee submitted its report, including the Preamble, on September 12, 1787.[8]Following brief deliberations and adjustments, the convention unanimously approved the document on September 17, 1787, with thirty-nine delegates affixing their signatures.[10] The Constitution, incorporating the Preamble, was transmitted to the Confederation Congress and state ratifying conventions, securing approval from the requisite nine states by June 21, 1788, and unanimous ratification by May 29, 1790.[10]The clause's purpose lay in signaling a deliberate evolution from the Articles of Confederation, ratified March 1, 1781, which had forged a perpetual union among sovereign states but engendered a frail central authority. Empirical deficiencies under the Articles included Congress's lack of power to impose taxes directly on citizens, compelling reliance on voluntary state contributions that often fell short, and its inability to regulate interstate or foreign commerce, fostering trade barriers and economic fragmentation among states.[11][12] By invoking a "more perfect Union," the Preamble thus framed the Constitution as a remedial instrument to vest the federal government with coercive fiscal and commercial powers essential for national viability.[13]
Historical Background Under the Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation, ratified in 1781, established a loose alliance of sovereign states with a weak central government lacking powers to tax, regulate commerce, or enforce laws uniformly, leading to persistent national disunity after the Revolutionary War.[14] Post-war, the Confederation Congress struggled to repay approximately $40 million in domestic and foreign debts incurred during the conflict, as it relied on voluntary state contributions that often fell short, exacerbating fiscal impotence.[15] States issued their own depreciated paper currencies, causing rampant inflation and complicating interstate transactions, while the absence of a national currency or banking system hindered economic recovery.[16] Additionally, states imposed tariffs and trade barriers on one another, fragmenting the domestic market and stifling commerce, as the central government held no authority to negotiate uniform regulations.[17]These structural deficiencies manifested acutely in events like Shays' Rebellion from August 1786 to February 1787, when debt-burdened Massachusetts farmers, facing foreclosures and high state taxes to service war debts, armed themselves under Daniel Shays to close courts and resist collection, highlighting the Confederation's inability to quell domestic unrest or provide military support.[18] The national government possessed no standing army and could not compel state militias effectively, forcing Massachusetts to raise its own forces at great expense, which underscored the causal link between excessive state sovereignty and federal paralysis in maintaining order.[19] Such breakdowns eroded creditor confidence and revealed the system's failure to balance individual state interests against collective security needs.In response to these empirical failures, particularly interstate commercial disputes, five states sent delegates to the Annapolis Convention from September 11 to 14, 1786, initially aimed at standardizing trade but resulting in a broader call for revising the Articles due to low attendance and recognition of deeper governance flaws.[20] The convention's report, drafted by Alexander Hamilton and endorsed by James Madison, urged Congress to convene a grand convention in Philadelphia the following year to render the federal Constitution "adequate to the exigencies of the Union," directly attributing disunity to the Articles' decentralized framework.[21] Madison, analyzing the "vices" of the system in his April 1787 memorandum, argued that state-level factions and legislative instability undermined national cohesion, advocating a stronger federal authority with coercive powers over states to enforce laws and prevent anarchy.[22] This impetus culminated in the Philadelphia Convention of May 1787, convened explicitly to address the Confederation's breakdowns rather than merely amend it.[23]
Original Intent: Strengthening Federal Authority
The phrase "a more perfect Union" articulated the Framers' objective to supplant the Articles of Confederation—ratified on March 1, 1781—with a national framework that augmented central authority while preserving state autonomy through enumerated powers. The Articles' structure, treating states as sovereign entities in a loose alliance, precluded Congress from imposing taxes, regulating commerce among states, or enforcing treaties, resulting in chronic fiscal paralysis and vulnerability to disunity. This voluntary confederation proved inadequate during crises, as exemplified by Shays' Rebellion (1786–1787), where armed farmers in Massachusetts protested debt foreclosures and high taxes, exposing the central government's inability to mobilize forces or revenue without state consent.[24][25]In Federalist No. 15, Alexander Hamilton critiqued the Confederation's defects, asserting that its reliance on state compliance equated to "a rope of sand," devoid of coercive mechanisms to bind individuals directly and necessitating a revised union with compulsory powers to avert dissolution.[26]James Madison, in Federalist No. 45, emphasized that the Constitution delegated to the federal government "few and defined" powers—primarily external concerns like war, diplomacy, and commerce—contrasted with the states' "numerous and indefinite" internal authorities over local affairs, thereby fortifying national cohesion without subsuming state identities. Complementary arguments in Federalist No. 10 advanced Madison's view that an expansive republic, rather than small confederacies, would control destructive factions through diverse interests and representative filtration, while No. 51 delineated separation of powers and federalism as dual safeguards against tyranny, enabling a "more perfect" equilibrium.Post-ratification outcomes validated this design's efficacy in stabilizing the union. Alexander Hamilton's First Report on the Public Credit, submitted January 14, 1790, proposed federal assumption of state debts (totaling approximately $25 million alongside $54 million in federal obligations), funding via tariffs and excise taxes, and interest-bearing securities, which Congress partially enacted by August 1790.[27] These measures, including the establishment of the First Bank of the United States in 1791, restored public credit, quelled speculative instability, and fostered economic integration by the mid-1790s, as federal revenues rose from near zero under the Articles to supporting defense and infrastructure without resorting to state requisitions.[28] Such developments underscored the Framers' intent for a limited yet potent federal apparatus, constrained by Article I's enumeration and the Tenth Amendment's reservation of non-delegated powers to states or people, countering fears of consolidation while remedying confederative frailties.[29]
Enduring Interpretations and Originalist Perspectives
Originalists interpret the Preamble's phrase "a more perfect Union" as referring specifically to the Framers' goal of establishing a stronger national government to address the structural failures of the Articles of Confederation, such as the lack of effective mechanisms for interstate commerce regulation and collective defense, rather than an open-ended mandate for perpetual social or moral transformation.[30] This view emphasizes the 1787 Constitutional Convention's focus on federal architecture, where delegates prioritized enumerated powers and checks on centralized authority to prevent the factionalism and weakness observed under the Articles from 1781 to 1789.[31] The Framers' deliberate omission of a Bill of Rights during the Convention—later added only after Anti-Federalist demands during ratification—further evidences their initial concern with union's governmental framework over expansive individual protections or utopian ideals.[32]Justice Antonin Scalia exemplified this originalist fidelity by critiquing invocations of the phrase to justify judicial policymaking, arguing that it does not empower courts to pursue a "more perfect world" by imposing preferred social or economic outcomes, as such readings undermine democratic processes and the Constitution's fixed meaning.[33] Scalia's jurisprudence, rooted in textualism and historical practice, maintained that the Preamble's aspirational language limits "perfection" to the enumerated ends like justice and tranquility through structural means, not evolving interpretations that expand federal authority beyond Article I powers.[34] Empirical analysis of ratification debates, including The Federalist Papers, supports this by highlighting the Framers' intent to balance national efficacy with state sovereignty, avoiding the causal pitfalls of over-centralization that plagued confederacies.[35]In contrast, proponents of a "living Constitution" contend that "a more perfect Union" implies an adaptive document requiring ongoing refinement to achieve substantive justice, citing post-ratification developments like the Fourteenth Amendment's 1868 ratification, which extended citizenship and equal protection to formerly enslaved persons as a fulfillment of the Preamble's promise amid Reconstruction-era imperatives.[36] Advocates, often from academic circles, argue this approach aligns with causal realism in historical context, where civil rights expansions corrected slavery's legacy and enhanced domestic tranquility, though critics note such views frequently rely on selective historical narratives that prioritize equity outcomes over the original federal-state equilibrium.[37]Critics of expansive readings, including many originalists, assert that living constitutionalism deviates from the Framers' empirical federalism by enabling judicial overreach, as seen in modern applications that invoke the Preamble to support centralized policies diverging from enumerated powers and risking tyrannical consolidation.[38] This perspective underscores the Tenth Amendment's reservation of non-delegated powers to states, warning that unchecked "perfection" pursuits erode the causal safeguards against majority factionalism that Madison detailed in Federalist No. 10, potentially inverting the Constitution's design from limited union to unbounded governance.[39] While left-leaning interpretations emphasize progressive amendments as legitimate evolution, right-leaning originalists prioritize textual constraints to preserve the 1787 balance, arguing that true perfection lies in adherence to ratified meaning rather than judicial equity mandates unsupported by historical evidence.[40]
Political and Rhetorical Uses
Barack Obama's 2008 Speech on Race
The speech, titled "A More Perfect Union," was delivered by then-Senator Barack Obama on March 18, 2008, at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[41][42] It responded to national controversy over sermons by Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ for two decades, after ABC News aired clips in early March 2008 featuring Wright's statements such as "God damn America" and assertions that the U.S. government created HIV/AIDS to target Black people.[43][44] The remarks, delivered during Wright's tenure as senior pastor since 1972, prompted accusations of anti-Americanism and divided Obama's campaign supporters.[45]Obama defended his association with Wright, noting the pastor "helped introduce me to my Christian faith," officiated his wedding to Michelle Obama in 1992, and baptized their daughters.[41] He portrayed Wright as a product of the 1960s civil rights struggles, whose valid critiques of racial injustice coexisted with unacceptable rhetoric, stating, "I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother—a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me."[41] Obama recounted personal encounters with racism, including his biracial upbringing as the son of a Kenyan father and Kansas mother, and his grandmother's use of racial epithets out of fear while driving through rough neighborhoods.[41]The address examined racial grievances on both sides, describing "black anger" as rooted in slavery, Jim Crow segregation, and persistent disparities like unequal schools and job discrimination, yet warned that channeling it into blanket resentment hinders progress.[41] It similarly acknowledged "white resentment" among working-class communities facing factory closures and policies perceived as prioritizing minorities, such as affirmative action, arguing these sentiments reflect real economic anxieties rather than mere prejudice.[41] Obama advocated moving beyond such divisions toward shared solutions, invoking the Constitution's Preamble—"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union"—as an unfinished mandate for empathy and collective action on issues like education and healthcare.[41]The speech mitigated fallout from the Wright scandal, which had threatened to erode Obama's support among white voters, by reframing race as a topic for candid national dialogue rather than evasion.[46] It dominated media coverage as the campaign's pivotal moment to date and contributed to Obama's resilience in primaries, including a 14-point win in North Carolina on May 6, 2008 (56% to 42% against Hillary Clinton), bolstering his path to the Democratic nomination on June 3, 2008.[46][47]
Other Historical and Contemporary Political References
Abraham Lincoln invoked the Preamble's phrase "to form a more perfect Union" in his First Inaugural Address on March 4, 1861, to defend the indissolubility of the federal Union amid secession threats at the onset of the Civil War.[48] He argued that the Constitution's explicit aim superseded the Articles of Confederation's perpetual union, positioning preservation of the existing federal structure as essential to constitutional endurance rather than permitting dissolution by states.[48] This usage emphasized federalist continuity and restraint against revolutionary change, tying Union preservation to the original compact's authority.In the civil rights era, the phrase appeared in political rhetoric advocating expansive federal interventions for equality, exemplified by President Lyndon B. Johnson's signing of the Voting Rights Act on August 6, 1965, which enforced suffrage protections through federal oversight of discriminatory practices.[49] Johnson framed such legislation as fulfilling constitutional promises of justice, with contemporaries interpreting the Act as a mechanism to realize a more perfect union by addressing inherited inequalities via centralized authority, diverging from stricter federalist limits on state autonomy.President Ronald Reagan referenced the Preamble in his 1988 Legislative and Administrative Message, quoting "in Order to form a more perfect Union" to underscore a vision of union rooted in individual liberty and economic self-reliance, countering collectivist expansions.[50] This invocation aligned with federalist advocacy for decentralized incentives, promoting policies like tax reductions and deregulation enacted earlier in his administration—such as the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981—to foster prosperity without broad federal mandates, contrasting reformist reinterpretations.[50]In contemporary usage, President Joe Biden employed the phrase during the November 15, 2021, signing of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, stating that "the work of building a more perfect union did not end with the railroad or the interstate," positioning $1.2 trillion in federal spending on transportation and broadband as ongoing constitutional perfection through modern infrastructure. This reflected an expansive reading, extending the Preamble to justify large-scale government investment in physical and digital networks, akin to historical public works but scaled to address perceived 21st-century disparities.
Criticisms and Conservative Critiques of Expansive Readings
Conservative legal scholars, exemplified by Robert Bork, have argued that expansive judicial interpretations invoking the Preamble's aspiration for "a more perfect Union" facilitate activism that erodes the Constitution's federalist structure, particularly through post-1937 rulings upholding New Deal programs and shifting deference from state sovereignty to centralized authority.[51] In works like The Tempting of America (1990), Bork contended that such readings prioritize judges' policy preferences over original intent, enabling federal encroachments that the framers explicitly limited via enumerated powers and the Tenth Amendment, which reserves undelegated authority to states or the people.[52] This post-1937 pivot, often linked to the Court's retreat from invalidating New Deal measures amid Franklin D. Roosevelt's packing threat, marked a departure from pre-Lochner-era constraints on federal commerce power, allowing regulations that originalists deem inconsistent with the document's design for divided governance.[53]Originalist critiques emphasize that the Preamble's language is hortatory, not a grant of substantive power justifying overrides of state prerogatives, as evidenced by the Tenth Amendment's ratification alongside the Constitution to reaffirm federalism amid Anti-Federalist concerns over consolidation.[54] For instance, broad constructions of the Commerce Clause in decisions like Wickard v. Filburn (1942), which extended federal reach to intrastate wheat production, have systematically diminished state autonomy, contrary to the framers' vision of a union improving coordination without absorbing reserved powers.[55] Conservatives assert this misapplies the phrase by treating it as a warrant for perpetual federal evolution, ignoring textual limits and leading to debates over whether it licenses identity-focused federal mandates—such as those on education or civil rights—that preempt state experimentation, despite the Tenth Amendment's explicit reservation.[56]Empirical consequences include fiscal strain from welfare expansions rationalized under adaptive union-building; U.S. public debt rose from $286 billion in fiscal year 1960—prior to major Great Society programs like Medicare and Medicaid enacted in 1965—to over $37 trillion by 2025, with entitlement outlays comprising roughly 60% of federal spending by the 2020s and driving persistent deficits uncorrelated with revenue growth.[57][58] This trajectory, conservatives link to causal overreach in interpreting general welfare provisions as unbounded, fostering bureaucratic expansion that originalists trace to Preamble-inspired rhetoric excusing deviation from fiscal discipline embedded in Article I's appropriation requirements.[59] While acknowledging achievements like World War II mobilization—where federal debt-to-GDP peaked at 106% in 1946 under enumerated war powers, enabling unity without interpretive license for peacetime entitlements—critics prioritize evidence of long-term failures, such as regulatory layering that burdens states and correlates with slower post-1960s economic mobility.[60]Progressive counterarguments defend such readings as essential for equality advancements, positing the phrase's dynamism accommodates societal progress beyond 1787 confines, yet conservatives counter with causal evidence of governance pathologies: unchecked administrative state growth, exemplified by over 2,000 federal agencies by 2020 exerting quasi-legislative power, which dilutes democratic accountability and federalism without textual warrant.[61] This perspective underscores that true perfection lies in fidelity to fixed meaning, not elastic reinvention risking the union's structural integrity.
Cultural and Artistic Representations
Books and Literature
A More Perfect Union: Advancing New American Rights (2001), co-authored by then-U.S. Representative Jesse L. Jackson Jr. and Frank E. Watkins, advocates for amending the U.S. Constitution with an economic bill of rights, including guarantees to employment, health care, housing, and education, as steps toward fulfilling the Preamble's call for a more perfect union. Published by Welcome Rain Publishers in New York, the book proposes these additions as remedies to perceived failures in achieving equality and prosperity, drawing on the aspirational language of the founding document to justify expansive federal roles in social welfare.[62][63] Such proposals contrast with the Framers' intent to form a union limited to enumerated powers for common defense, justice, and tranquility, without mandating affirmative entitlements that could undermine individual liberty and fiscal restraint.[7]Historical analyses include Betsy Maestro's A More Perfect Union: The Story of Our Constitution (1987), a 48-page illustrated volume for young readers that chronicles the 1787 Constitutional Convention from May 25 to September 17, detailing delegates' compromises to replace the ineffective Articles of Confederation with a federal system balancing state sovereignty and national authority. Published by Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books, it emphasizes the Convention's goal of perfecting the union through mechanisms like separation of powers and checks and balances, supported by a timeline of key dates and summaries of the Constitution's articles.[64][65]Scholarly collections such as Toward a More Perfect Union: Writings of Herbert J. Storing (edited by Joseph Bessette, 1995) examine the Constitutional Convention and ratification debates through Federalist and Anti-Federalist lenses, highlighting tensions between centralized union and decentralized liberty as central to the document's design. The volume underscores how the Framers addressed confederation flaws—such as inability to regulate commerce or raise armies—via a republican framework to foster enduring unity without tyranny.[66] These works illustrate a spectrum from originalist federalist histories preserving limited government to reformist visions expanding constitutional scope, with the former aligning more closely to the 1787 text's emphasis on securing preexisting rights over engineering outcomes.[7]
Film and Television Productions
A More Perfect Union: America Becomes a Nation (1989) is a dramatized feature film depicting the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787, emphasizing key compromises such as those on representation and slavery, viewed through the perspective of James Madison as chief author.[67] Produced by Brigham Young University's Motion Picture Studio and directed by Peter N. Johnson, the 112-minute production premiered on July 4, 1989, coinciding with the bicentennial of the Constitution's drafting, and features actors portraying delegates amid debates over federal powers and state sovereignty.[68] It prioritizes historical reenactment over modern interpretive overlays, drawing from primary accounts of the Convention's proceedings.[67]In television, the phrase appears in fictional contexts invoking constitutional ideals amid critiques of contemporary governance. The Person of Interest episode "A More Perfect Union" (Season 5, Episode 6), aired May 23, 2016, on CBS, uses the title to frame a narrative involving a wedding disrupted by surveillance threats, metaphorically contrasting the founders' union-building with modern state overreach and machine-driven monitoring.[69] Created by Jonathan Nolan, the series broadly examines artificial intelligence and government intrusion, with this installment highlighting tensions between individual liberty and collective security as echoed in the Preamble.[70]Educational documentaries have revisited the phrase for America's semiquincentennial. The PBS special A More Perfect Union, scheduled to premiere on November 24, 2025, analyzes the founding document's core principles—limited government, checks and balances, and enumerated powers—and their empirical applications in sustaining republican institutions, produced in collaboration with the National Constitution Center to underscore enduring causal mechanisms of stability over ideological reinterpretations.[71][72] Earlier, Constitution USA with Peter Sagal Episode 1, "A More Perfect Union" (2013), aired on PBS, traces the Constitution's origins and federalism's role in unifying diverse states, using on-location reporting from Independence Hall to illustrate compromises' practical outcomes in governance.[73]
Music and Performances
The punk rock band Titus Andronicus released "A More Perfect Union" as the opening track on their 2010 album The Monitor, invoking Civil War-era themes to analogize contemporary American disunity through references to historical figures like Abraham Lincoln and Harriet Beecher Stowe.[74][75] The seven-minute song blends raw punk energy with spoken-word elements, establishing a narrative of national strife and reconciliation drawn from the album's conceptual framework paralleling the American Civil War.[76]Folk musicians Pete Seeger and Lorre Wyatt issued the album A More Perfect Union in 2012 via Appleseed Recordings, featuring 16 original and traditional songs performed with guest artists including Bruce Springsteen, Tom Morello, and Steve Earle, emphasizing themes of civic responsibility and unity in a post-recession American context.[77] Tracks like "God's Counting On Me... God's Counting On You" underscore collective action for national improvement, rooted in Seeger's lifelong advocacy for social justice through acoustic folk traditions.[78]Both works received recognition in curated lists of patriotic American music; Titus Andronicus' track appeared in selections for Independence Day playlists highlighting non-clichéd expressions of national identity, praised for its intense evocation of historical cohesion amid division.[79][80] The Seeger-Wyatt collaboration earned acclaim for bridging generational folkactivism with contemporary relevance, though it did not achieve mainstream chart success, aligning instead with niche audiences focused on protest and unity anthems.[81]
Modern Initiatives and Organizations
Commemorative Projects for America's Semiquincentennial
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) launched its "A More Perfect Union" initiative on September 17, 2019, to support humanities projects commemorating the semiquincentennial of American independence in 2026.[82] This government-funded program provides grants across NEH's divisions for scholarly research, educational programming, and public engagement centered on the nation's founding era and constitutional principles.[83] By July 2025, the initiative had distributed over $85 million to advance these efforts, prioritizing examinations of original documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution's Preamble.[83]The program's scope emphasizes federalist structures, revolutionary ideals, and the historical context of national unity, with funding directed toward projects that highlight primary sources and the achievements of the founding generation.[84] For instance, in May 2025, NEH allocated $9.55 million across 68 projects under this umbrella, including initiatives for historical exhibits and curricula that trace the Preamble's role in establishing a more unified republic.[85] These grants avoid expansive modern reinterpretations, instead grounding outputs in verifiable archival materials and the causal mechanisms of early Americangovernance.[86]Key sub-programs include the "Celebrate America!" challenge grants, announced on April 15, 2025, offering up to $25,000 each to 250 recipients for events and resources focused on the founding of the United States, such as public lectures and digital archives of federalist debates.[87] Another component, "Public Impact Projects Celebrating America's 250th Anniversary," supports cultural institutions in developing scholarship-based programs on pivotal events like the 1776 Declaration signing, with deadlines extending into 2025 for outputs culminating in 2026.[88] Additionally, the "Rediscovering Our Revolutionary Tradition" grants, tied to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration, fund research into the ideological foundations of independence, reinforcing the initiative's commitment to first-hand historical evidence over secondary narratives.[86]Outputs from these efforts include enhanced public access to founding-era documents, such as digitized collections of constitutional convention records, and educational modules for K-12 and higher education that detail the Preamble's emphasis on forming a stronger union through enumerated powers and checks on factionalism.[83] In April 2025, NEH introduced grants specifically for creating statues honoring revolutionary figures, aiming to install commemorative works by 2026 that reflect documented contributions to federalist design.[89] These projects collectively aim to foster public understanding of the Constitution's original framework, drawing on empirical analysis of ratification debates and early governance outcomes.[84]
Advocacy and Media Groups
More Perfect Union, a nonprofit media organization founded in February 2021 by Faiz Shakir, former campaign manager for Senator Bernie Sanders, focuses on advocacy journalism targeting labor and economic issues to "build power for the working class."[90][91] Its content emphasizes union organizing efforts, corporate accountability, and progressive policy critiques, including videos amplifying worker campaigns against companies like Amazon.[4] The organization has garnered an Emmy Award for its video production and claims influence in high-profile labor disputes, such as the 2021 Alabama Amazon warehouse unionization drive, where its materials were shared by White House officials.[90][92] Critics, including conservative media watchdogs, argue that its self-described "advocacy journalism" prioritizes ideological advocacy over neutral reporting, often selectively presenting facts to favor left-leaning narratives on economic inequality while downplaying market-driven counterarguments or union shortcomings like internal corruption or failed strikes.[4] This approach aligns with Shakir's Democratic Party affiliations and Sanders' orbit, raising questions about source credibility in an era of polarized media where progressive outlets may exhibit systemic bias toward expansive government intervention.[91]In contrast, the American Cornerstone Institute's A More Perfect Union Project, launched around 2021 under the leadership of Ben Carson, promotes civic education rooted in the U.S. founding principles of self-governance and limited government.[93][94] The initiative features online and in-person events, such as the "Read the Constitution Challenge" and discussions on the Declaration of Independence, aimed at equipping citizens to engage with original constitutional texts and resist expansive interpretations of federal power.[93][95] Achievements include fostering public discourse on founders' intent through accessible resources, potentially countering perceived declines in civic literacy evidenced by surveys showing low knowledge of basic constitutional facts among Americans.[96] Detractors from left-leaning perspectives critique the project for embedding conservative priors, such as skepticism toward modern welfare expansions, which they view as selective emphasis on originalism that overlooks evolving societal needs; however, empirical data on limited government's historical role in fostering prosperity, like post-WWII economic growth under restrained federalism, supports its causal emphasis on decentralized authority.[94] Both organizations demonstrate public engagement successes but highlight tensions in advocacy media, where ideological slants can lead to echo chambers rather than balanced truth-seeking, as progressive groups like More Perfect Union often amplify unverified worker testimonials while conservative efforts like ACI's prioritize textual fidelity over contemporary reinterpretations.[90][93]
Recent Developments Post-2020
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, progressive policy organizations invoked the phrase "a more perfect union" to advocate for expansive federal rebuilding efforts. The Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank, released a January 2021 report titled "A More Perfect Union: A Policy Blueprint for Economic, Social, and International Rebuilding in the Post-COVID Era," proposing investments in infrastructure, social programs, and international alliances to address economic disparities and strengthen democratic institutions.[97] This blueprint aligned with the Biden administration's early agenda, including the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) signed on November 15, 2021, which authorized $1.2 trillion in spending, with $550 billion in new investments for roads, bridges, broadband, and water systems, framed as essential for post-pandemic recovery and long-term equity.Conservative critiques emphasized fiscal restraint, arguing that such invocations masked unchecked spending that exacerbated national debt without proportional economic benefits. The IIJA was projected to add $256 billion to the federal deficit over a decade, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, with potential increases exceeding $400 billion when accounting for offsets not fully realized.[98] Analyses from the Heritage Foundation highlighted the bill's inclusion of non-traditional infrastructure like electric vehicle charging stations and climate resilience projects, contending it prioritized ideological goals over core maintenance, contributing to a national debt surpassing $31 trillion by late 2021 and risking inflationary pressures evidenced by consumer price index rises of 7% in 2021.[99] Empirical data from the Congressional Budget Office indicated that while the IIJA could boost GDP by 0.2% annually through 2031 via productivity gains, its debt-financed nature imposed intergenerational costs, with interest payments on federal debt reaching $659 billion in fiscal year 2023, up 30% from pre-pandemic levels.In 2024, academic and civic initiatives continued to reference the phrase amid election-year concerns over democratic erosion. The College of William & Mary adopted a resolution on November 4, 2024, committing to "strengthen democracy through the pursuit of knowledge toward 'a more perfect union,'" emphasizing civic education, free inquiry, and institutional reforms to counter polarization, as outlined in its strategic plan update.[100] Similarly, A More Perfect Union: The Jewish Partnership for Democracy, a nonpartisancoalition, expanded programs on civic learning and electionintegrity, mobilizing over 10,000 Jewish volunteers by mid-2024 to support voter access, poll worker recruitment, and combating misinformation in the presidential election cycle, drawing on constitutional ideals to foster community engagement without endorsing candidates.[101] These efforts correlated with observed outcomes like increased voter turnout in key demographics, though broader empirical assessments, such as those from the Bipartisan Policy Center, noted persistent trust deficits in electoral processes, with only 58% of Americans expressing high confidence in electionadministration post-2024.