The Battle to Save the Republic Begins Here.
Every revolution needs a room where the work gets done. Ours had print shops and taverns; yours has this page of our electrical gazette. Here you will arm yourself with knowledge of the document you defend, discover the ground you truly stand on, deeper than red or blue, and then take up the pen. We are partial to that weapon. The deadliest shot of our revolution was a woodcut, a snake cut to pieces over three words: Join, or Die. The pieces joined. The sword won our war, but the pen won the Republic, and it is the only arm that can save it now. The old snake is hissing again. Rejoin, or die.
Read it.
Know where you stand.
Join the fight.
Two clocks, two hundred and fifty years apart, running in step. This whole site is the doorway between them, and you are standing in it.
We kept the first appointment. This past Fourth of July was the Declaration’s two hundred and fiftieth birthday, and we crossed back over for it expecting the bonfires and illuminations Mr. Adams promised you. We found the house on fire instead, and half the household insisting the flames were only on the neighbors’ side. As birthdays go, a flaming disappointment.
But mark the other clock. We did not build the Republic in 1776; we only declared it. The building took eleven quarrelsome years and two near-collapses, and we barely walked out of that shut room with a Constitution. You now stand at the start of your own eleven years. The Fourth is spent. September 17, 2037 is not. Get that one right, and the missed birthday will be remembered as the morning this family finally got back to work. This Workshop holds the tools.
2026
2026
2025
2020 data
Constitution’s 250th
Four observatories, one weather. Three no longer grade the Republic a full democracy; the fourth just posted its lowest mark on record. The full examination stands below.
First, You Understand.
These are your first two tools, a matched pair. You cannot defend what you have not read, and you cannot fight for what you cannot name. One tells you what you are defending. The other tells you what you are fighting for. Take them both.
Know What You’re Defending.
Ten questions. Six to pass.
You cannot defend what you have never read. Could you pass the test we give to new citizens? The men who wrote the Constitution are not certain they could either. Ten questions, six to pass, the Spirits grading on a curve. Take it, and you have taken your first step to getting Reconstituted.
Know What You’re Fighting For.
The labels change. Human nature doesn’t.
In 1776 the fight was independence: Patriot or Loyalist. By 1787 it was how to govern: Federalist or Anti-Federalist, an argument that spilled into the streets. Today a new study sorts Americans into nine groups, and tomorrow the labels shift again. They always do. Human nature does not. The republic was built to hold every one of these voices, not to silence them. Find your own ground, deeper than red and blue. Publius the Cat is your guide.
The Health of the Republic
A republic has vital signs. This one takes two readings: how the world’s instruments grade our democracy from the outside, and how we feel about it from within, both laid over the eleven-year clock that runs from today to the Constitution’s 250th. Open it and take the Republic’s pulse.
Republic’s Health
Health of the Republic: an at-a-glance dashboard that expands to a full reading of how the world grades American democracy and how Americans feel about it, with two stacked eleven-year timelines.
The 76 Spirits Almanac▾
Health of the Republic
41/100
Four world instruments no longer grade us a full democracy, and our own reading of ourselves sits at 41 of 100.
It took eleven years to build our Republic. The next eleven decide whether we celebrate its 250th. days remain.
Two eleven-year spans, stacked so the clocks run together. Above, 1776 to 1787: from the Declaration through a war and a failed first government, two near-collapses, to the miracle of the Constitution, signed in 1787. Below, our own eleven years, from the missed birthday to the Constitution’s 250th. Their line ended in triumph. Ours is not yet drawn.
One number cannot capture a republic. So we take two readings: how the world grades our democracy, and how we feel about it ourselves.
Our own vital signs are illustrative pending final sourcing. Watch the third gauge. When we still trust one another, the Republic is healing no matter who holds office. It is the one number partisanship cannot inflate.
How to read these instruments
Two readings, one weather. On one side, four international instruments grade our democracy from the outside. V-Dem aggregates thousands of country experts, Freedom House scores political rights and civil liberties, the Economist Intelligence Unit blends expert judgment with survey data, and the Democracy Matrix measures how well institutions function in practice. They disagree on the numbers because they measure differently. They agree on the direction.
On the other side, our own vital signs read the mood from the inside: whether we think the country is on the right track, whether we trust our institutions to work as intended, and whether we still trust one another to govern together. That last one matters most, because it is the number partisanship cannot inflate.
Read them the way a sailor reads a barometer. No single glass is the storm, and no instrument measures courage, which has always been the Republic’s reserve currency. But when the outside glasses fall together and the inside ones run low, only a fool keeps full sail. The four instruments are printed as issued; the vital signs are illustrative pending final sourcing. All of it is public. Check our arithmetic.
It takes every viewpoint to build a more perfect union, and the road is never a straight line forward. The threat was never the person who disagrees with you. It is whoever tries to end the argument.
The Contests: Two Ways In.
Saving the Republic is its own reward, but we are not above a prize. There are two ways in, and every prize settles at midnight on New Year’s Eve, Philadelphia time. The first asks only that you show up. The second asks that you make something. Choose either. Choose both.
The Reconstituted Drawing
Get Reconstituted. Get entered.
That is the whole rule: create your free account and you are in. On the fourth of every remaining month of this anniversary year, one Reconstituted citizen wins $76. Five fourths remain. And at midnight on New Year’s Eve, Philadelphia time, the grand drawing awards $250. No purchase, no essay, no catch.
The Certificate: Every Reconstituted citizen receives the Certificate of Reconstitution, period parchment, signed by a Spirit, delivered to your inbox, yours to keep and to share.
Prizes: $76 monthly, $250 New Year’s Eve
one grand prize of $250, drawn at midnight New Year’s Eve, Philadelphia time, plus five monthly prizes of $76, drawn on the fourth of each month, August through December; entries must be received in 2026
Who can enter: United States residents, 18 or older. One entry per person. Void where prohibited.
Sponsor: Anthrorithms LLC.
Reconstitute a Spirit
Bring a Spirit back. The best embodiment joins us.
The grand prize is a seat among us. Choose a voice from American history, famous or forgotten, and bring them back. Write their editorials, and the Spirits will answer in ours. Hold a junto in their name and publish the minutes, as we do in Spirited Discussions. Send Letters to the Editor. Make art, film, or song. Show us who they are and why they have returned.
How to enter: Register, then submit through the form on this site. Submissions open August 4, 2026.
The best embodiment joins the 76: their own page in this electrical gazette, a byline on our masthead, your name behind it wherever it travels, and $1,776 besides. The community votes; the Editors confirm every reconstitution.
Two discs on our front page stand empty and waiting. The newest Spirit is revealed at midnight on New Year’s Eve, Philadelphia time, the first anniversary of our own arrival.
Prize: $1,776, and a seat among the 76
Answer the Call.
You have walked the Workshop. What remains is the doing. Learn the Constitution until you can defend it from memory. Stand your ground, knowing at last exactly where it lies. Take up the pen, and write yourself into the Republic’s story, for everything this country is was first written by somebody who refused to wait. Two hundred and fifty years ago, that was us. Now it is you.
He has pointed at farmers, printers, and schoolteachers before. He has never once pointed at the wrong person.