As a campaign representing the grassroots movement taking place across America today, we resist the current definition of this movement as "far right" by our mainstream media. Instead, we join with the full spectrum of American people who want to see the government limited to its Constitutional constraints. Thus, the only narrative we accept is the one that seeks this common ground in conservative, liberal, and libertarian values.

Defining the Grassroots
The grassroots movement is not about left vs. right, but up vs. down. We want minimal government intervention in the economy and our personal lives. There is a role for the government, but when it is allowed to grow beyond its defined limits, then a check is needed.

Historically and Constitutionally, the role of the free press was to be a check against government overreach. Unfortunately, the opposite seems to be true today. The mainstream media is largely a defender of government overreach. With the rising grassroots movement to check that overreach, many in the media have chosen to define this movement in left vs. right terms. This is inaccurate, and it raises the question of whether the free press is really about freedom after all.

The media trades in narratives--stories that connect the dots for the audience. We want the media to tell it like it is, and the grassroots movement seeks a unity across the ideological spectrum, with a common ground of individual and economic liberty.

This unity does exist among everyday people like us. This unity can be sustainable from the grassroots up--and we hope from the top down as well. We ask one thing of the leading voices in our political media: listen openly to our narrative. Be tolerant. Considering alternative narratives. 

In this campaign, we will explore this idea of grassroots unity, and we expect a free press to explore this with us. In the end, we hope to win the hearts and minds of Americans who want unity. We will push back against any media narrative crafted to frame our movement as far right or populist or opposed to moderates. Our intent is to protect and promote liberty for all, not just for this or that ideology.

Finding Ideological Unity
When you take a step back and look closely, you see room for common political ground among diverse ideologies. Consider the conservatives, liberals, and libertarians.

As good conservatives, we want to conserve those enduring values of American history that are rooted largely in our Judeo-Christian traditions. These traditions promote a unity between reason, faith, and knowledge, even though many do not see that.

As liberals in the classic sense, we embrace the idea of liberation from unjust social structures. An overreaching government run on self-interest instead of self-discipline is headed towards injustice. When you consider the role of the family, the free markets, free speech, free press, and the free exercise of religion, you see various social structures that tend to balance each other out.

The government, with its ability to tax, print money, set policy, and enforce policy, will always have opportunities to infringe on these other structures, rather than helping keep them balanced. The Constitution promotes a balance across these structures when followed.

As good liberals, we want to but also come to us from our national embrace of a plurality of perspectives. We embrace the sanctity of human life as God-given, and a primary role of the State is the protection of human life, beginning at conception. We must conserve plurality in the marketplace of ideas, just as we need more election choices than the handpicked candidates of our two major political parties.

We also have great appreciation for the libertarian contributions to economics. We embrace individual and economic liberty because a government cannot effectively plan or oversee our individual or economic lives. Centrally planning the social order always looks good on paper, but we believe the operations of the free markets promote liberty and productivity, while central planning promotes bureaucracy and limits growth. 

Markets tend to correct themselves. That's because there is an inherent virtue in how they work. When a person exchanges their hard-earned money for the goods and services they need, everyone wins.  The buyer gets the goods and services they need, and the seller gets the money they need to keep operating.  Can the State replace the operations of the free markets to grow the job base?  Do bureaucracies or the forces of competition keep America working?

The True Narrative
The grassroots movement embraces a plurality of perspectives on the same basis that we embrace the liberty of the free markets. When liberal, conservative, libertarian, and even socialist concepts enter the marketplace of ideas, competition will prove which ideas are true, useful, and satisfying.

If the media wants to survive as the Internet disrupts its traditional business model of message control, it should focus on bringing forward the best ideas from a range of ideological traditions and perspectives. Zero in on the hard questions we all face, and elevate the public dialogue from the grassroots up. There is unity here--and we are eager to include the media into that unity.

The civil rights movement shook a narrow conservatism to the core and reminded all Americans that we must judge one another based on the content of one's character, and never on our differences. We ask the media to champion this narrative of the grassroots movement. This narrative is consistent with the Constitutional values of liberty and self-evident truth that have made freedom of the press a major part of our balanced social order.