Jefferson for america 2024
Ben Everidge for Thomas
celebrating our founding principles …
What would Thomas Jefferson think if he were running for President in 2024 or had been in 2020? Would he recognize his own country? Would he be happy with the way the government operates today—at the federal, state, or local level?
What would Mr. Jefferson run on in the age of Obama, Trump, and Biden? Would the philosophies that mattered to him in the late 1700s and early 1800s still guide him in a more modern presidency? Would the U.S. electorate even listen to what the author of the American Declaration of Independence might have to say today if he were on the campaign stump?
Would Iowa or New Hampshire welcome Thomas into their living rooms on a cold winter's night?
“So, in going back to our past, to the days of Thomas Jefferson, we hope to better help us understand the context in which we are to be governed now.”
Because all of the norms that we have known in the past about American government and elections went out the door with the election of New York’s Donald J. Trump in 2020 - intentionally or practically - we needed a Guidestar to help us determine what might be happening to us next.
So, by going back to our past, to the days of Thomas Jefferson, we hope to better understand the context in which we are to be governed now.
We are governed now by our country’s politicians who have, in the opinion of many, taken us far afield of the political values that our founding fathers instilled in that first generation of free Americans. Three straightforward but powerful documents – the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and the Bill of Rights – institutionalized these founding principles for succeeding generations of Americans lest we forget from which we came.
If Thomas Jefferson were running for president in 2024, it would indeed be a different kind of election – a little more revolutionary, perhaps, than before. Peaceful, you can bet, but transforming yet again as it was in his day. The issues to be debated would be debated. News-seeking sound bites favored by today’s candidates would no doubt yield comprehensive solutions offered by the more experienced and skilled founding fathers. There is no incumbent president to run against.
Mr. Jefferson most likely would stand by the very issues he first campaigned on as a young delegate to the American Continental Congress in 1776 and again as a successful presidential candidate in 1800. Freedom of speech and religion; life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; empowered individuals and state governments; a solid military and adroit foreign policy; innovation and free trade; more living within our personal and government means through balanced budgets and appropriately funded mandates; and, strict interpretations of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, consistent with the Declaration of Independence.
If Thomas Jefferson were running today, in 2024, he would undoubtedly have a lot to add to the American dialogue taking place on our country’s campaign trails. Were he running again today, Mr. Jefferson might even sound a little bit like this:
I have two agendas here.
First? Let us examine and discuss what we do at home in the years ahead.
Second? Let us also examine and discuss what we do abroad and overseas in the decades to come.
At home, we know beyond a reasonable doubt that we need to make America prosperous again for all of its citizens. We need to create far more jobs, balance our budget, and end class warfare in our nation by generating more incredible wealth for every class of Americans, not just one at the expense of the other. We need to educate our children better, celebrate our elders, and honor our legacies by creating vast new healthy industry and manufacturing opportunities for all of our communities. We must innovate quickly, strategically, and creatively. In doing so, we help make a better life for all of our neighbors.
Abroad, we need to re-calibrate American foreign policy to seek civil societies, not necessarily new Democracies, although we prefer them. We need to encourage consensual, collaborative, transformational outcomes in our international relations that will give every citizen of the world an equal opportunity to participate in the successes of the 21st century. In doing so, we help bring more excellent global stability and security for all people, no matter where they call home.
We, as Americans, need to ensure that all citizens—whether of America or the world—can express themselves without threat of violence or subversion. That there be respect for the individual rights of every person and everywhere possible access to free enterprise and free trade. By doing so, we ensure the endurance and preservation of our planet.
In doing so, we embrace the vision our forefathers had that America could be and would be the leading example that all people, no matter their backgrounds and experiences, will have unimpeded access to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
That has been the American dream for more than two centuries now, and we hope - we trust - for centuries to come.
If you would like for Mr. Jefferson’s founding principles to be a center point for our politics and policies of today again, please join our campaign for America 2024. We call it Jefferson for America 2024.
You can register your vote in several different but impactful ways:
Register for your free membership in Jefferson for America 2024.
Send any candidate of your choice a contribution of $20.24, symbolizing those principles that Mr. Jefferson would have advocated if he were running for president today.
Visit one of our founding father’s homes – go to Jefferson’s Monticello or Madison’s Montpelier in Charlottesville, Virginia, or George Washington’s Mount Vernon in Alexandria, Virginia, or John Adam’s Peacefield in Quincy, Massachusetts.
Visit Boston’s Old North Church, Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, and Jamestown, Yorktown, or Colonial Williamsburg, where it all got started.
Ask your elected member of Congress to take you on one of those private walks around the Capitol dome tours that they can take you on if they escort you personally. You will enjoy the remarkable view of your capital city, and you might have a chance to ask your Congressman or Senator a question about our Constitution and how it has affected his or her votes lately. Share it with us, too, if you will, by clicking My Thomas Take.
Get involved with any candidate that you like—give them your time and your opinion—they will hear you more loudly and clearly if you do.
Jefferson for America 2024 is our attempt to see the 2024 race with 20-20 hindsight. As you will see over the next three years, this prism will be the context for which we attempt to bring you this modern American political magazine.
We hope you will enjoy American politics and governing from Mr. Jefferson's perspective!
Thanks for your support of the American experiment. You just might be able to affect the outcome of your future through this next election season. Mr. Jefferson predicted long ago that you might have to!