Dear AMAC Members,
As we enter the fall season, I can’t help but reflect on all that AMAC Member patriots have accomplished this year.
This August, I spent time with more than 500 AMAC members aboard our inaugural AMAC member cruise, celebrating America’s 250th birthday. I found myself thinking about the responsibility that came with what we had inherited.
America has been entrusted to each generation for only a little while.
None of us created this nation. We didn’t write the Declaration of Independence or draft the Constitution. But for this moment in history, these extraordinary gifts have been placed in our care, and it is our turn to steward them.
That responsibility is especially important as Americans prepare to vote in this November’s midterm elections. The decisions voters make will determine control of Congress, shape leadership across the states, and influence the direction of our country.
That is why, in this issue, we take a closer look at some of the most consequential House and Senate races to watch this November, along with some of the most consequential gubernatorial contests across the country.
Elections are about more than candidates and political parties. They are ultimately about ideas and the kind of country we intend to leave behind. At AMAC, we have always believed in the principles articulated at our nation’s founding: that our fundamental rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are not gifts from government. Our Creator has endowed us with them, and government derives its legitimate authority from the consent of the governed.
Yet today, socialism has found renewed appeal among some Americans, particularly younger generations. In his article on page 18, Shane Harris examines the rise of social ism in America, the growing influence of organizations such as the Democratic Socialists of America, and some of the forces contributing to this shift.
History gives us powerful reasons to take these ideas seriously. Throughout the 20th century, communist regimes produced extraordinary repression, deprivation, and loss of life. But there is also a deeper question before us. What happens when citizens gradually surrender responsibility for their own lives and communities to increasingly powerful institutions?
Self-government requires more than freedom. It requires citizens who are willing to exercise that freedom responsibly. Liberty and personal responsibility cannot be separated.
Dan Weber, my father and AMAC’s founder, under stood that. He often reminded us through his example that what each of us did with the little time we were given on this earth mattered enormously.
America’s Founders understood it, too. They confronted enormous challenges yet possessed the courage to act on behalf of generations they would never live to see.
Now I find myself thinking about the generations we may never see. Fifty years from now, America will celebrate its 300th birthday. Some of our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be there. Millions of Americans who have not been born yet will celebrate that anniversary. And they will inherit an America that you and I helped shape.
What will they say about us? What will they say about the generation that stood at America’s 250th birthday?
Will they say that we became so discouraged by politics that we withdrew from the responsibility of citizenship? Or will they say that we understood what had been entrusted to us and that we were grateful for it, defended it, and strengthened it before passing it on?
That is stewardship.
And I believe AMAC members possess the character necessary to protect the architecture of liberty, engage our fellow citizens in the contest of ideas, and remind another generation that freedom carries with it both opportunity and responsibility.
AMAC was not built because we believed one organization could save America. AMAC was built because we believe in you—the American people.
My father’s faith did not ultimately rest in politics, and neither should ours. Politicians will disappoint us.
Elections will be won and lost, and cultures will go through periods of confusion. But God is still God. Truth is still truth. Right is still right.
It is our responsibility to decide what we will do with the part we have been given—speaking when necessary, serving where we can, defending the freedoms entrusted to us, and exercising our sacred right to vote this November.
May God bless you, may God bless this wonderful organization my father began with a simple idea and a leap of faith, and may God continue to bless the United States of America.
Rebecca Weber,
Chief Executive Officer & Editor in Chief
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