The Compact
Five commitments we make to each other
Not a platform and not a creed. A short list of the things we will put first, whichever side we vote for.
Constitution before personality
Lawful elections, checks and balances, civil liberties, due process, independent institutions, and peaceful transitions of power.
The Constitution is not a mascot for one side. It is the set of rules that lets a large, disagreeing country govern itself without violence. We commit to those rules before we commit to any leader, movement, or cause, including our own.
What this means in practice
- We accept the results of lawful elections, including the ones we lose, and we support the ordinary, boring machinery that produces them: clerks, canvassers, poll workers, and courts.
- We defend checks and balances even when they slow down something we want. A power we would not trust in the other side's hands is a power we should not want in ours.
- We insist on due process and civil liberties for people we find unsympathetic, because rights that depend on popularity are not rights.
- We respect the independence of courts, inspectors general, auditors, and career public servants, and we hold them to the same honesty we expect of elected officials.
- We treat the peaceful transfer of power as a habit to be practiced, not a law to be assumed.
Why it comes first
Every other commitment depends on this one. Without lawful elections there is no country to put before party. Without due process there is no community, only the powerful and everyone else. Personalities come and go; the rules are what we hand to the next generation.
Country before party
Reject political dehumanization and the claim that patriotism belongs to one tribe.
Parties are useful. They organize disagreement, recruit candidates, and give voters a shorthand. But a party is a tool for governing a country, not a substitute for one. When loyalty to the tool outranks loyalty to the whole, self-government starts to fail.
What this means in practice
- We refuse to describe fellow citizens as enemies, traitors, or vermin, and we refuse to laugh along when others do.
- We reject the claim, from any direction, that love of country belongs to one faction. Patriotism is not a partisan credential.
- We apply one standard to every public actor. Conduct we would condemn in an opponent we will condemn in an ally.
- We keep our friendships, our churches, our teams, and our neighborhoods open to people who vote differently.
- We ask "is this good for the country?" before "is this good for my side?" and we notice when the two answers differ.
Why it matters
Contempt for half the country is not a political position. It is a solvent that dissolves the trust every institution runs on. We can argue hard about policy and still recognize each other as citizens of the same republic.
Truth before propaganda
Evidence over rumor. Correct mistakes. Disclose uncertainty. Expect honesty from leaders, organizations, and media.
Self-government depends on citizens who can find out what is true and act on it. Propaganda, from any source, treats citizens as targets to be moved rather than people to be informed. We commit to being hard targets.
What this means in practice
- We weigh evidence over rumor, and we wait for evidence before repeating a claim, even a claim that flatters our side.
- We correct our own mistakes plainly and promptly, without burying the correction.
- We say what we do not know. Confidence is not a substitute for accuracy.
- We expect honesty from the leaders we vote for, the organizations we join, and the media we consume, and we withdraw trust when it is abused, no matter whose side the abuser is on.
- We read the strongest version of an argument we disagree with before we answer it.
Why it matters
A country cannot deliberate if it cannot agree on what happened. We will not always agree on what the facts mean, but we can commit to the same rules for establishing them.
Community before contempt
Treat fellow citizens as human beings. Strengthen families, neighborhoods, and local institutions.
Most of civic life is local and personal: a school board, a volunteer fire company, a food pantry, a library board, a Little League. These are the places where Americans of every political view already work together. We commit to strengthening them rather than importing national contempt into them.
What this means in practice
- We treat the people we disagree with as human beings first, with families, worries, and reasons.
- We show up. Local institutions run on attendance, and attendance is nonpartisan.
- We practice stating the strongest fair version of a neighbor's view before arguing our own.
- We resist the pull to sort our friendships, our congregations, and our towns by party.
- We give people room to change their minds without humiliation.
Why it matters
Contempt is easy at a distance and hard across a table. The more of our civic life happens across tables, the harder it is for anyone to convince us that our neighbors are our enemies.
The common good before special interests
Support conditions that let ordinary people and communities live securely, participate meaningfully, and prosper.
Every interest group, including ours, believes its interest is the public's. The test is whether ordinary people and communities are better able to live securely, participate meaningfully, and prosper. We commit to keeping that test ahead of any narrower advantage.
What this means in practice
- We ask who benefits and who pays, and we are honest when the answer is "us."
- We support the conditions of a good common life: safe streets, honest markets, functioning schools, fair rules, and public institutions that treat people with dignity.
- We are suspicious of any arrangement, public or private, that concentrates power without accountability.
- We disagree openly about how to achieve these conditions. Disagreement about means is not disloyalty to ends.
- We keep our organization independent of parties, candidates, and campaigns so that we can hold all of them to the same standard.
Why it matters
A republic is not just a set of rules. It is a shared project of making life better for the people who live in it. The rules are worth defending because the project is worth doing.
Ready to make the commitment?
The Civic Pledge puts these five commitments in first person plural, in about 150 words.
Read the Civic Pledge