Telling American Stories

The word “values” has taken on a great deal of importance in recent years. It has been used to explain the ascendancy of conservative politics in America over the past several decades and as the defining issue of the last presidential election. It has been held up as the key to effective framing, and repeated ad nauseum by pundits and politicians who seem intent on stripping it of all meaning. Values are, of course, much more than the communications buzzword of this political moment. They are also much less than the silver bullet that some of the more vocal advocates of framing would have you believe. Values are the morals that underly the stories we tell each other about ourselves as Americans. They have a great deal to say about what we consider most important, most valuable, in our own lives and in our society. They help to explain not only who we are, but how we see ourselves.

Understanding how values have shaped our history, our politics, and our society can be immensely useful as we work to convince our fellow Americans of the justness of the causes for which we are fighting. Many progressive communicators have accepted the idea that facts and figures,—that merely being right— will not change minds. We must convince on a much deeper level. Telling our stories—connecting our work with a set of American values shared by individuals from across the political spectrum, and defining the issues that we care about in terms of those values—can be a first step toward winning the support of people who might never have considered it otherwise. Evoking these shared values is about more than scoring political victories though. As advocates and communicators, we have a responsibility to define our vision for our society: What is it that is good in America, what should be nurtured and preserved? What must change if we are to live up to the high ideals of this nation’s founding? And how can we get there? Americans are a deeply optimistic people, and they are hungry for a positive vision for the country’s future, free from the fear and division that have marred our politics in recent years. They know the country is headed in the wrong direction (just ask the pollsters), and are ready to support the real changes we’re advocating, if we’ll only explain those changes in terms of the values we share.

What does it mean to tell an American story? And who gets to tell one? For too long, one political faction in this country has offered narrow and self-serving answers to those questions. This website, is dedicated to the proposition that we’re ready for new answers to these questions. That we need new answers to these questions if we’re going to achieve the kind of sea change in our politics that so many of us desire.

For organizations and individuals working for social justice and a progressive vision for our country, learning how to frame our work in terms easily understood by Americans from across the political spectrum can be a key to gaining their support. The struggle for progress and prosperity isn’t new. It has been part of the American story since the beginning. This website will draw the connections between what we’re fighting for today, and what we fought for then, and explore aspects of our shared history that perhaps we’ve forgotten. It’s time we remembered.