Inherently American
The pending meeting of an inherently American Pope with an inherently American President marks a symbolic moment of rare significance.
It is more than a convergence of power or pageantry, it will be a profound moral collision, yet, this moment invites reflection.
Too much of the media landscape is completely unprepared to engage with the deeper implications and, what’s at stake here is the meaning of Americanness itself, and how journalism can evolve to meet the complexity of our times.
The figures involved embody, in sharply different ways, America’s mythos: its exceptionalism, its contradictions, its hunger for moral authority.
But the dominant media ecosystem, shaped by decades of binary thinking and market-driven reduction, struggles to hold such tensions. Ideological silos echo partisan certainties, while the institutional center often flattens complexity in the name of neutrality and, the false promise of objectivity. The reality is that we all have to stand somewhere.
So, what’s needed now is a shift: a reimagining of political journalism not as performance or persuasion, but as a space for civic renewal and cultural discernment. We need a discourse that moves beyond simplification, one capable of embracing contradiction as a portal to deeper understanding. Reality. Americans will forever disagree. Factions exist; they always will. America was built for this.
This moment represents a strategic opportunity, wherein, complexity can be approached with rigor and empathy and, it can capture attention and restore trust. The moment resonates because it reflects the fractured, nuanced reality that so many Americans now live. AI can help but, it has to be put to work.
I am proposing a project that works across disciplines, media, philosophy, technology, to help tell a more truthful and human story about what it means to be American. Artificial intelligence may serve not as a replacement for insight, but as a tool for revealing hidden connections, reframing stale debates, and engaging the public in more reflective ways.
To bring this forward, I am seeking support from those outside the traditional U.S. media agency and agent models, partners who are not bound by the inherently American ideological habits or commercial incentives of the American system of knowing what is best and how things must be done. The goal is to initiate a conversation that is at once national, continental and civilizational; and, one that takes seriously the cultural and symbolic weight of this moment.
We must ask, carefully, honestly, and publicly and, what it means to be Inherently American. And who, if anyone, is prepared to help us answer.
