As we reach the 250th birthday of America, our country faces complex challenges. A 2025 marry survey It has been found that Americans are concerned – 77 percent say that the issues that divide us are a serious threat to the future of our democracy.
Nevertheless, our normal humanity is much deeper and more powerful than our differences.
It is important to identify that, as a nation, we are strong because we respectfully are able to express and debate various approaches.
As executive directors of the two presidential centers – a Republican, a democratic – we have found inspiration through hundreds of leaders who have come together, beyond biased lines, learning from each other and differences between their communities.
Ten years ago, President George W Bush, Bill Clinton and George HW Bush worked closely with LBJ Foundation To create scholars of the President’s leadership – a program to develop leaders who do not work with different approaches and beliefs to create a positive, permanent impact worldwide and worldwide.
Throughout the program, scholars faced bold examples of President’s cooperation: President Johnson united an unexpected coalition to pass the Landmark Civil Rights Act. President George HW Bush brought the two sides together to end discrimination through Americans with the Disabled Act. President Clinton was working in the corridor to balance the budget for the first time in a generation – reducing national debt and leaving the country with a record surplus. President George W. Bush rally a bilateral support for the President’s emergency plan for AIDS relief, which is Save the lives of over 26 million people,
These examples give scholars insight how, even between division and disagreement, we can work together to make something better.
A decade later, there are about 600 alumni in the program. While they are of different political affiliation, work in different fields, and from different parts of the country, these leaders share a common feature: their desire to work in partition to bring positive changes.
The most important piece of this program is a fee for these leaders to develop personal leadership projects that address a challenge and make a difference in their communities.
The 2018 fitciri John Benian of the Scholars Program built a program, which brings Republican and Democrats together from the Montana State Legislature for a literal “sausage-making” event-creates an opportunity to build confidence and relationships that can help elected leaders reach consent on divisive issues.
2023 scholar Steve Lopez discovered that the lack of mechanics threatened the ability of Dallas Fire Rascue to respond to emergency situations. Inspired by a program launched by a fellow scholar, Lopez led an overhaul of the mechanic recruitment and training process and is constructing a school-to-work pipeline to bring students into the area.
From the category of last year’s scholars, Kelly Cat-Wells developed a talent acquisition and learning platform for disabled professionals. Cat-Wells became disabled at the age of 17, and through their new platform, they have already supported more than 3,000 disabled people and associated employers with highly qualified and often unseen talent pools.
President Johnson once said, “There is no problem that we cannot solve together, and very few we can solve ourselves.” At the time of the Great Division, the program of the scholars of the President’s leadership gives us hope and inspiration that our normal humanity can be strong, and the next generation can come together to solve problems that will bring us together, not us.
David J. Kreer is the Executive Director of the George W Bush Institute and Stephanie S. Strait Clinton is the Executive Director of the Foundation.
