A WORKING OPENING · AUTHOR REVIEW PENDING

We are still early.

America is 250 years old. I want to know what we must build for it to reach 801.

I begin with a belief: we are still early. I believe this country is far from its pinnacle. There are discoveries we have yet to make, institutions we have yet to imagine, and forms of prosperity we have yet to share. The next stage of the American story deserves the ambition that built the earlier ones.

My confidence begins with the next generation. I believe young Americans can widen our circle of concern, find better ways to live together, and attempt things their parents could barely imagine. A country that gives them the freedom and tools to do that has an extraordinary resource.

Belief creates obligations. If I think America has centuries ahead of it, I have to care about what we leave behind. I have to ask whether our children will inherit institutions capable of learning, a government capable of serving, and an economy that rewards useful work. I have to ask what our power accomplishes abroad and what its costs mean at home.

A country with a long future needs people willing to put their judgments on the record. Some of mine will be wrong. I have built election models, made assumptions, and found reasons to revise them. That experience belongs in this book because confidence becomes more useful when other people can examine its foundations.

When I say 801, I am asking us to lengthen our sense of responsibility. Imagine the Americans who will inherit what we begin now. Imagine the standards they might use to judge us. Then ask what we should start building while the choice is still ours.