Clearly, however, were this agenda in and of itself enough to enlist the assent of the American people, we would not be looking at eight years threatening to turn into twelve or perhaps even sixteen years of Republican occupancy of the White House. Merely reinforcing this very agenda with talk of faith will not show the way out of the woods.

What the Democrats need, and I hope they find it, is not simply faith but a new agenda to put that faith behind. And here I would hazard that there is nothing particularly wrong with the old agenda (Who could oppose health care or economic well-being?). The problem is that it is simply too safe, too timid, too incomplete and too unwilling to venture beyond what has become the Democratic comfort-zone. It offers no real vision of how to match our glorious past to the challenges of our uncertain future. And in this very failure it reflects a disquieting unwillingness to take any real chances – despite all the talk about “faith.”

Two additions to the Democratic agenda might convert it into a blueprint which if backed by faith could really make a difference. The first is to enshrine Security, American and global, as the first principle of foreign policy. This would eliminate all state-building adventurism and all myopic attempts to impose democracy or even Western notions of human rights through the barrel of a gun. America may hold democracy and human rights to be absolutely good; and it may want to carry these values to the rest of the world. Such a mission, however, with rare exceptions (e.g., genocide) is the job of American art, American culture and American intellectuals. It is not the job (nor is it within the competency) of the American military!

Second, there must be a recommitment to true pluralism at home. We are a nation of many peoples and many histories. The attempt to homogenize us all into a single expression of American-ness is bound to privilege some (the definers of “true American-ness”) and penalize all others. This can only result in a debilitating cultural “guerilla war” that seldom comes out into the open but is always seething beneath the surface. If the Democrats could get back to the tradition where the right side of the hyphenated American grants equal protection, recognition and expression to the Italian, Vietnamese, Jewish, Muslim and African left side, we would be a much stronger nation, all united in our commitment to protect our protection.

And God knows best.