(Newswire.net — September 13, 2023) —
Joe Daniels, who — as the former chief executive of the Medal of Honor Museum, America250, and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum — led and worked on three of the United States’ more patriotic efforts in recent memory, knows a bit about the national allegiance the country can have when it comes together.
The CEO likes to talk about “patriotic philanthropy, people wanting to give to help America achieve its highest ideals.”
“It’s really alive and well out there,” Joseph Daniels says. “And that’s been the market or the space that I like to operate in.”
But, as most who pay attention to the “national conversation” are aware, things aren’t exactly rosy right now in the home of the red, white, and blue. Severe and rapid changes in social rights, political climate, race relations, and economics have created a divisive environment that’s full of distrust, contention, and fear.
While the country has gone through periods of unrest previously (think the McCarthy era witch hunts, the “Irish Need Not Apply” signs in New York at the turn of the 20th century, the country’s long and shameful relationship with slavery and its continued fallout, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s), the most recent iteration of discourse has taken a turn for, well, the absolute worst.
While everyone is entitled to their own opinion, at no point in U.S. history have pollsters found more disagreement about everything.
In 2003, for example, 70% of Democrats and 41% of Republicans thought that gun laws should be more strict in the United States. In 2023, Democratic enthusiasm for stricter gun laws (after an onslaught of mass and school shootings in the past 20 years) rose to 84%. The percentage of Republicans who thought the same dropped to 31%.
The same poll found that 44% of Democrats, in 2003, thought that immigration into the country should be decreased while 53% of GOPers at the time agreed. Fast-forward to 2023, and only 18% of Democrats thought immigration should be decreased in the country. The Republican percent jumped up to 58%.
These drastic separations do have costs. While there was a not insignificant difference between how Democrats and Republicans thought about immigration in 2003 (an 11% difference), in 2023 it was an actual chasm (a 40% difference).
Social scientists differ on explanations for the increased cultural divide. Some say it’s economically driven. Others say changing social norms have alienated groups of people. Still others believe the erosion of trust in public and religious institutions is to blame.
In all likelihood, there’s a little something for everyone to be upset about. Which means there are also things that can unite people — like a love of country.
Hard Work if You Can Get It
After working as an associate at white-shoe law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore and at consulting giant McKinsey & Company, Joe Daniels found himself as the general counsel for the much debated, much argued-about memorial that would be erected in the space that was occupied by the twin towers prior to their destruction on Sept. 11, 2001.
“I joined [the Sept. 11 memorial] in June of 2005 as one of the very first employees,” Joseph Daniels shares. “About eight months into it, during the absolute chaos of in-fighting and family members being upset, [Larry] Silverstein [and his insurance company had been involved in a dispute over insurance payments relating to the towers], and headlines in the New York Post that ground zero is a mess, the first president sort of got swallowed up in the politics and she was asked to leave.”
What should have been a uniting project for Americans was in danger of becoming the opposite.
But Joseph Daniels thought things could be turned around. He was appointed acting president of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in the spring of 2006.
“I was only 33, I think, at the time, but we started to turn things around and simultaneous to that, our original board chair said to the rest of the board that he was going to step back,” Daniels recalls.
That change helped facilitate Daniel’s permanent placement as president and CEO.
“We were able to take a project where there was so much division and had people come together,” Daniels says. “We opened the memorial on Sept. 11, 2011, the 10th anniversary of the attacks.”
So what magic did Daniels use to take said project from division and calamity to national treasure? What has he figured out that perhaps the rest of us should listen to?
It’s not as difficult as one might think if one looks at commonalities among U.S. citizens instead of differences, according to Joe Daniels.
“Caring about your country is something that can cross racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and geographic lines,” he says. “There are people out there who want America to achieve its highest ideals.”
The lessons he learned from his time at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum helped CEO Joseph Daniels channel that patriotism to successful endeavors at America250, the planning and logistical organization charged with creating the celebration for the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
While it is of course much easier for a single person to develop a way of bringing people together than it is to motivate a remarkably diverse, 330 million-person country to do the same, the lessons Daniels learned are the building blocks for rebuilding a union and trust among fellow citizens.