The Unfinished Work
Every generation must choose whether America becomes more expansive or more exclusive.
American history has never been a straight line. It has been a long argument over who counts.
From the moment the Declaration of Independence proclaimed that “all men are created equal,” even as millions remained enslaved and women were denied the vote, America has wrestled with the gap between its ideals and its reality. The Declaration did not promise perfection. It promised the possibility of becoming “a more perfect Union.” That phrase acknowledges something profoundly important: perfection is unattainable, but progress is possible.
For most of my sixty-seven years, I believed that, however fiercely we argued, America was gradually answering that question more generously than it had before. We stumbled, sometimes badly. We suffered painful setbacks. We endured moments that tested the nation’s conscience. Yet, taken together, the story of my lifetime seemed to be one of a country slowly, imperfectly, becoming more expansive in its understanding of who belonged within the promise of “We the People.”
The Constitution never promised perfection. It promised the possibility of becoming “a more perfect Union.” That simple phrase acknowledges a profound truth: progress is possible, even if perfection is not.
Generation after generation accepted that unfinished work.
The abolition of slavery gave way to Reconstruction, only to be followed by the long darkness of Jim Crow. Women fought for generations before securing the right to vote. Workers organized for fair wages, safer workplaces, and reasonable hours. Children were pulled from factories and sent to schools. Americans demanded cleaner air and cleaner water after witnessing the terrible consequences of unchecked pollution. Healthcare gradually became more accessible through Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and, later, the Affordable Care Act. People with disabilities secured long-overdue recognition of their rights. LGBTQ Americans emerged from the shadows to claim not special rights, but equal dignity.
None of those generations finished the work. They simply handed us more than they inherited.
Every right we now consider ordinary was once considered radical. The weekend. The forty-hour workweek. Social Security. Medicare. The Civil Rights Act. Marriage equality. Environmental protections. Every one of them was fiercely resisted before it became woven into the fabric of American life.
As Hubert H. Humphrey once observed, “The moral test of government is how it treats those in the dawn of life, the children; those in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy, and the handicapped.” That moral test has never changed. What has changed, over time, is our willingness to answer it by expanding the circle of those whose dignity deserves protection.
It was never easy.
The abolition of slavery was followed by the betrayal of Reconstruction and the cruelty of Jim Crow. Women fought for generations before earning the right to vote. Labor organizers sacrificed livelihoods and, in some cases, their lives to secure safer workplaces and fairer wages. The struggle for civil rights demanded courage that few of us can truly imagine. Americans with disabilities insisted they deserved not charity but equal opportunity. LGBTQ Americans endured decades of rejection before many were finally recognized as equal participants in our national life.
Each victory was incomplete. Each victory was contested. Each victory moved America, however imperfectly, toward greater expansiveness.
Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” We often quote those words while forgetting the harder truth they imply. The arc does not bend by itself. It bends because ordinary people refuse to stop pulling.
For most of my lifetime, that seemed to be the American story.
As Barack Obama once remarked, progress comes “in fits and starts.” That describes our history. We argued over policy, priorities, and cost. Yet beneath those debates seemed to be a shared assumption that the circle would continue to widen.
We debated how. We debated when. We rarely debated whether. Today, for the first time in my life, it feels as though the argument is no longer about how quickly to move forward. It is about whether we should move backward.
Donald Trump did not create this backlash. Long before he descended the escalator in Trump Tower, powerful political, cultural, and economic forces were resisting an America becoming more diverse, inclusive, and expansive. But Trump legitimized that backlash, accelerated it, and became its most recognizable champion. He gave voice to a movement that increasingly viewed many of the gains of the previous half-century not as accomplishments to preserve, but as excesses to reverse.
More importantly, millions of Americans embraced that vision, whether because of economic anxiety, concerns about immigration, distrust of institutions, or genuine agreement with the movement’s broader agenda. Whatever brought people together politically, the governing result has too often been a shrinking rather than an expansion of America’s promise. The consequences have been profound and immediate.
Voting rights protections painstakingly built over generations have been weakened. Constitutional protections for reproductive freedom disappeared almost overnight. Diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives have become targets rather than aspirations. LGBTQ Americans, particularly transgender people, increasingly find themselves the subjects of legislation questioning their dignity and place in public life. Books are removed from libraries. Teachers navigate growing restrictions on what they may discuss. Environmental safeguards are rolled back in favor of short-term interests. Scientific expertise is dismissed when politically inconvenient. Universities, journalists, and public servants are portrayed not as partners in democracy but as enemies to be conquered.
These are not isolated policy disagreements. They are individual threads woven into the same American tapestry. Pull one thread, and perhaps the fabric holds. Pull enough of them, and eventually the tapestry itself begins to unravel. What took generations to weave together can begin to come apart far more quickly than most of us ever imagined.
Rights are rarely lost all at once. They are narrowed, qualified, delayed, challenged, and normalized away until one day we look around and discover the landscape has quietly changed beneath our feet.
Progress was never guaranteed. But for much of my life, it felt expected.
I grew up believing that while America often stumbled, it usually got back up, facing the right direction. Today, for the first time in my lifetime, I sometimes wonder whether we have turned around.
That realization is not born of partisan disappointment. It is born of patriotic concern. I am not grieving because one political party wins elections and another loses them. Elections are the ordinary rhythm of democracy. I grieve because I fear we are forgetting the extraordinary sacrifices of those who widened America’s promise long before we arrived.
The abolitionists who challenged an economy built on human bondage. The suffragists who endured ridicule and imprisonment. The workers who demanded that earning a living should not require risking one’s life. The marchers who crossed bridges, knowing they might not reach the other side. The countless Americans who believed their children should inherit a country more just than the one they inherited themselves.
They rarely knew they would win. They marched anyway. They organized anyway. They voted anyway. As John Lewis reminded us, “Freedom is not a state; it is an act.”
Hope is not believing that history inevitably bends toward justice. Hope is deciding to help bend it. As Hubert H. Humphrey once said, “The moral test of government is how it treats those in the dawn of life, the children; those in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy, and the handicapped.” That moral test has not changed. Only our willingness to meet it has.
Patriotism is not believing our country has always been right. It is believing our country is worth the hard work of helping it become better.
Democracy is not measured only by the leaders we elect. It is measured by the people we refuse to leave behind. Nor is democracy a monument built by our ancestors. It is a garden they entrusted to our care. Left untended, weeds return. Walls crumble. The harvest fails.
In the Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln called upon those who remained to dedicate themselves to “the unfinished work.”
Every generation inherits the unfinished work of democracy. Ours is the first in many decades that must spend so much of its energy simply trying to keep the ground that previous generations already won.
Progress is not America’s default setting. It is America’s recurring choice.
The question that has echoed throughout our history still stands before us.
Who counts?
Our answer will determine whether the next generation inherits a nation that continues widening the promise of “We the People,” or one content to make that promise smaller.
The unfinished work, as always, now belongs to us.
