American Purpose

American Purpose is a magazine, media project, and intellectual community founded in October 2020 by Jeffrey Gedmin and Francis Fukuyama. In the writing we publish, the podcasts we produce, and the conversations we host, we have three broad goals: First, we aim to defend and promote liberal democracy in the United States. We use “liberal” not in the modern American political sense, but in the classical sense. Liberal values—including equal protection under the rule of law, basic civil liberties, and respect for the rights of the individual and for the autonomy of institutions of civil society—once enjoyed nearly universal consent but have recently come under attack on both the left and the right. We also intend to examine the tensions within liberal democracy that leave it vulnerable to these attacks. We are proponents of reform and revitalization. Second, we seek to better understand and address the challenges to liberal democracy abroad. As the United States has stepped back from its longstanding role as leader of the world’s liberal democracies, we have seen liberal democracy threatened by both authoritarian regimes and populist governments. We believe such developments present a grave danger to American security and prosperity. Finally, because we believe that the political and cultural issues of the moment cannot be separated from questions of enduring importance—about the ends and purposes of life, about how to live well and wisely together, about beauty and consolation—we intend to offer criticism and commentary on history and biography, high art and pop culture, science and technology.