To Preserve, Protect, and Defend the Soul of America

In 2026, the United States turns two hundred and fifty years old. Anniversaries of this size invite two very different kinds of commemoration. One looks backward with a fixed and comfortable pride — flags, fireworks, a story about founding that ends before it gets complicated. The other treats the anniversary as an occasion for the harder, more useful work: an honest accounting of what the country has built, what it has broken, and what it still owes the people living inside it. This series is an attempt at the second kind. To Preserve, Protect, and Defend the Soul of America is daily podcast built around a simple premise: that the "soul" of a nation is not a slogan but a set of institutions, habits, and unresolved arguments — and that understanding any of them requires looking closely rather than looking away. We organize the podcast episodes around the themes like healthcare, law, education, local government, culture, sp