Brave New Discourse

Theodore Johnson's Latest.

Happy pub day to Ted Johnson, my adviser at New America! Order his book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Bookshop, Target, Walmart—or from an Indie bookseller near you. Also great: Ask your local library to carry If We Are Brave: Essays From Black Americana.

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Johnson: Hit his step count, casually waiting for democracy to catch up.

"The Black church can be theatrical, but its believers do not play," writes Theodore R. Johnson in a Washington Post essay adapted from his new book, If We Are Brave: Essays From Black Americana.

Capped for every occasion—naval squalls, graduations, Bar Mitzvahs and/or misfit mentees.

Johnson is my intellectual North Star at New America. He’s part Commander, part scholar, all heart. His career in service—decades in the Navy, stints as a White House Fellow under Obama and speechwriter for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—infuses his incisive political commentary with a potent mix of salt-air wisdom and Beltway insight.

In the excerpt, Johnson opens with a soul-stirring tableau of a Southern Black church altar call, a scene so vividly rendered you can almost smell the olive oil and hear the rustle of deaconesses' skirts. This memory-as-metaphor sets the stage for Johnson's exploration of faith—both spiritual and civic—in the American experiment.

Hands steady on democracy's wheel, oblivious to my metaphor pileup ahead.

Johnson, our modern-day Prometheus, steals fire from the realm of abstraction and gifts it to mortals in tangible form. Democracy becomes a sweaty blacksmith's forge, citizens the reluctant smiths of their own fate. Our "handbasket to hell" is alchemized into a crucible of change, an opportunity amidst chaos. He conjures the Founding Fathers, those eager sprinklers of "providence," while gently prodding readers to confront their own sacred cows—a patriotic cattle drive of self-reflection.

With surgical precision and an unexpectedly tenderhearted bedside manner, Johnson dissects our divided nation. He lays bare democratic institutions groaning under the weight of polarization, inequality, and brazen power plays. Where others might pen a dirge for democracy, Johnson composes a rousing call to arms, a symphony of renewal in the key of hope.

[How I imagine] Johnson [looks while] graciously enduring my caption capers.

As his essay crescendos, Johnson exhorts readers to become architects of America's future, his final battle cry echoing like a trumpet blast through history's halls. "Come hell or high water," he challenges, we must forge our fate—civic engagement as our hammer and tongs.

For those navigating the labyrinth of American democracy, If We Are Brave isn't just a compass—it's the whole damn map.

See you soonish! In the meantime, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram and my books on Bookshop, Amazon, and your local bookstore or library. If you’d like me to sign or personalize my books, purchase copies from Oblong.