Americans measure almost everything.We track inflation, unemployment, consumer confidence, stock prices, test scores, crime rates, election returns — even yards after catch. Every month brings another flood of government data intended to tell us how well the nation is doing at the moment.Yet for all the statistics we compile, one question is rarely asked: How healthy is the American experiment itself?
To help answer that question, Advancing American Freedom has launched the Independence Index, an ongoing assessment of the nation’s progress across the three enduring principles proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.The index measures nearly 30 indicators — from marriage, educational choice, and religious participation, to tax burdens, volunteerism, suicide, addiction, and family formation. While other national assessments focus on narrower topics such as the economy, the Independence Index measures whether people are preserving the habits, beliefs, and institutions that make liberty itself possible.The founders did not establish the United States merely to create wealth or an efficient government. They founded a nation on a far more audacious proposition: that free men and women, endowed by their creator with inalienable rights, could successfully govern themselves.That experiment has always depended on much more than laws and elections. It requires people capable of exercising freedom wisely.Today, however, too many Americans mistake government for the source of national strength rather than one of its beneficiaries. We expect Washington to repair problems that originate much closer to home — in families, neighborhoods, congregations, schools, and civic organizations. Politics has become our first resort when it should be our last.If that diagnosis is correct, we should expect to see signs of cultural weakness extending well beyond our politics. Sadly, the Independence Index suggests exactly that.The U.S. Capitol is seen from a street in Washington as heavy smoke from wildfires shrouds the atmosphere, Friday, July 17, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
