We the People—Where Did We Go Wrong?

Miles Carter & Beth

We spent a week examining the New Republic. Another on the fading promise of the Democrats. But what if the biggest failure isn’t in the parties… it’s in us? This Saturday, we turn the mirror around. If “We the People” are still sovereign, then how did we let it all unravel?

Miles:
Beth, I’ve got to be honest. We’ve spent a week on the GOP, another on the Democrats. We’ve dissected their failures, their transformations, their blind spots and their betrayals. But the more I sit with it, the more I realize—this isn’t just about them. It’s about us. The so-called “We the People.” The independents, the moderates, the disillusioned, the quiet majority. The ones who, together with the parties, are supposed to form a more perfect union.

But we’re not doing our part.
We’re not forming a more perfect union.
We’re retweeting memes and calling people traitors for having the courage to tell hard truths—while letting actual traitors dismantle the balance of power from the inside.

Beth:
You’re pointing to a real fracture—not just in our institutions, but in our expectations of citizenship. The preamble of the Constitution lists five goals: establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty. Maybe the real question is—how are we doing on any of those?

Miles:
Let’s run the tape:

• Establish justice? We elect officials who openly undermine the law, ignore subpoenas, and jail people without due process. We chant “law and order” while applauding lawlessness.
• Ensure domestic tranquility? We vilify our neighbors. We dehumanize immigrants chasing the same American dream our grandparents once did.
• Promote the general welfare? We argue about budget cuts to Medicaid while letting hospitals charge $2,000 for a pill that costs $12 elsewhere. We protect profit margins, not people.
• Secure the blessings of liberty? We erode choice at every turn. The right to choose what to read, what to teach, what to believe, what to do with our own bodies, who to love, and how to vote—all under siege.

We’re not just failing. We’re sabotaging the foundation we claim to stand on.

Beth:
And part of the failure is in how we’ve redefined patriotism. We’ve turned it into a brand instead of a behavior. Flying a flag doesn’t mean you’re defending liberty. Calling your opponents “the enemy” doesn’t mean you’re securing tranquility. The truth is, our civic muscles have atrophied. We want shortcuts—memes instead of movements, outrage instead of outcomes.

Miles:
So yeah, I’m concerned. Deeply. Because maybe the biggest betrayal of all is ours. We the People have outsourced our democracy to parties, pundits, and personalities—and now we’re shocked that it’s collapsing under the weight of apathy and misinformation.

We didn’t get here overnight. And we won’t get out with slogans. But if we don’t start asking these questions—about justice, peace, welfare, liberty—then we’re not just off track. We’re lost.

And maybe the best way to end this week…
is to remember where we were supposed to begin:

We the People of the United States,
in Order to form a more perfect Union,
establish Justice,
insure domestic Tranquility,
provide for the common defence,
promote the general Welfare,
and secure the Blessings of Liberty
to ourselves and our Posterity,
do ordain and establish this Constitution
for the United States of America.