1787 is a new and improved brand of leadership that will never, as George Washington once warned, “serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party.”

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Technically, 1787 is considered a “political party” but, in truth, we would never classify or describe ourselves this way if it weren’t for the Federal Election Commission (FEC). They say we have to be a party since we will “nominate qualified candidates for president and various congressional offices in numerous states.”

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We assure you, otherwise we would run from the “political party” label! The main reason for this is — due to politicians doing exactly what our first president warned against, as well as Americans being repeatedly disenchanted and disappointed by inaction and incompetence — political parties are becoming less and less appealing to Americans every day and, as a result, many if not most are increasingly shunning partisan affiliation.

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Gallup — an analytics and advisory company — found that two decades ago, the percentage of voters who called themselves Independents were less than 30 percent of the population. However, by April 2024, FORTY-FIVE PERCENT (45%) of Americans called themselves Independents, as opposed to 27 percent who identified as Republican and 25 percent who identified as Democrat. In another major shift, these unaffiliated voters are truly independent thinkers, meaning they don’t necessarily lean toward one major party or the other and are much more ideologically flexible.

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Observing voters in North Carolina offers a great example. A study led by a group of political scientists revealed that:

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In March 2022, the number of unaffiliated voters in North Carolina surpassed the number of registered Democrats to become the largest voting bloc in the state.

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Another awesome thing about modern-day independents is their refusal to get caught up in the game of politics. A Meredith Poll asked voters in North Carolina “what word or phrase would you associate with Critical Race Theory?” Democrats responded with “necessary,” “truth” and “honest” while Republicans responded “reverse discrimination,” “brainwashing” and “bullshit.” On the other hand, unaffiliated voters responded with “divisive,” “confusing” and “ridiculous,” a commentary not on Critical Race Theory itself, but on how the topic is being weaponized to cause maximum angst and division. Well done, Independents!!

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For this reason and many more, 1787 will never follow the old-school blueprint of being a political party. We have no preconceived agenda, no inflexible platform, and no misplaced loyalty to special interest groups. You don’t even have to be a member — in fact, we don’t have them anyway — and we will never, ever ask you to do anything… and that includes voting for our candidates, because we understand we must continually EARN your vote, never just EXPECT it.

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All that said, there are over 140 policy topics addressed on this website. When we initially started to work on the concept of 1787, we had this Pollyanna dream that we could all sit around a table — or in a beautiful rolling field, dressed in groovy dresses and daisy chains in our hair — and thoughtfully come up with solutions for our national challenges.

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Looking back, and knowing what we know now, we're pretty sure that back then we were just trying to dodge the grind that is unavoidable when trying to make something like this work. We finally came to understand that would never work, and that someone had to provide, at a minimum, a place to begin the conversation…or we would all just be sitting around staring at an empty white board in a field somewhere. : )

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We also knew that, because 1787 is brand new and trust in anything political is at an all-time low, simply announcing that we plan to change the world wasn’t going to cut it with the American people… and we get that completely. There is no way anyone could be expected to take this effort seriously until we clearly laid out what our vision for 1787 is all about.

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The goal is to gather as many good ideas as possible then create solutions that allow for a certain amount of flexibility so we can appropriately respond to changes in the national condition or when we all, together, discover a better way — a perpetual work in progress.

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Hopefully, seeing all these topics together in one place will make it easier for every American to work hard to prove these initial ideas wrong, or at least offer recommendations they think may be better.  That is the very best way to find the very best solutions! Please believe, we honestly don’t care where the answers come from or what ideology they align with.  We just want the very best ones.

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Will we all agree on everything? Of course not, but that’s the entire point. Walt Whitman said it best, “I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear.” It is our variety of opinions and experiences that will stimulate colorful debate on our nation’s most pressing issues.  Only then can we expect sustainable solutions. 

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There will always be a certain amount of disagreement, but we think we’ll be shocked by how straightforward the answers actually are when we drown out the noise of special interest groups, ideological labels, and the paralyzing backlash of a hard-core base. In many cases, it literally comes down to just doing the math.

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We promise you, 1787 is motivated by one thing and one thing only: To cultivate the greatest version of the United States of America.