competition & the marketplace of ideas

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Polarization is the new segregation. A broken political culture fueled by monied interests traps us in separate filter bubbles – familiar comfort zones filled with people who think just like us – while prodding us to distrust and condemn those who don't. 

The opportunity for powerful ideas to find new audiences is in grave danger of being snuffed out. Our vibrant democracy, the American idea as conceived by the founders, is all but paralyzed. The two major parties harbor no more illusions about swaying their political opposites, so all that remains is infighting at the margins. We're frozen in our tracks as the country goes off the rails. 

We envision a fresh start – an open palette for vigorous national debate – a virgin American landscape where ideas are free to be spoken, heard, nurtured and challenged by everyone, under new rules of engagement. Where the best ideas, stress-tested in a unique forum breeding hard-fought unity and true democracy, get their day in the sun, and some rise to the top of the heap. Where the people decide what the new America looks like, on the merits.