The American Horizon Project
Americans are frustrated and angry. Trust in institutions is on a steep decline. People have little faith that their government is working for them. They know the system is rigged against them. Families are having a harder time keeping up with their bills, covering health care and child care costs, and having even a little left over for a vacation or to take their family out to dinner. Deep divisions are exacerbated by the anger and fear spreading through social media like a virus.
America is built on the belief that there is something better on the horizon, but that view is hazier than ever.
American Horizon is built on a simple premise. We can and must do better. Our politics doesn’t just have a message problem. We have a trust problem. To rebuild a healthy, sustainable, winning coalition, we must take this head on, rise above the constant political point-scoring and work together.
Our Approach
Fundamental, bold change is required to address this mistrust along with the significant economic anxiety, corporate entrenchment, corruption, government ineptitude, technological disruption, and an economy that fails to deliver for working and middle-class Americans. We must ask harder questions and dig deeper into the answers a lot of Democrats are addressing. This can’t be fixed with a better slogan or a simplistic view of ideology and who is in what corner of the argument.
The American Horizon Project is a research and communications initiative designed to confront these issues by providing research, policy, and messaging guidance around key quality of life issues impacting Americans across ideological, demographic, and regional divides. Sharing all findings, the good and the ugly.
Our goal is to build a durable winning Democratic coalition for the future, which moves beyond the misuse of microtargeting toward a broader, coalition-building plan that resonates across urban, suburban, rural, and union communities alike. This means grounding our strategy in a quality-of-life framework that addresses affordability, housing, healthcare, education, and economic opportunity while confronting the forces that got us here.
We will do so honestly, confronting the differences across class, race, gender, age, and geography that could otherwise fracture the coalition and our work together. Politics has devolved into a competition of who can stir the most dislike, distrust and disillusionment. That might produce short-term wins, but it is not the path to long-term success. We will work to build a better way.
Our Leadership
Guy Cecil
President of the American Horizon Project
Guy Cecil is a builder; a builder of campaigns, coalitions, and institutions. Raised in Miami, Florida, he has worked as a teacher, minister, campaign manager, field organizer, non-profit board chair, and university lecturer. He now serves as Founder and President of Miles Strategies, named after the restaurant where his grandmother Mary Lee Riley worked throughout her life.
From 2015 to 2022, Guy served as Chairman and Chief Strategist of Priorities USA, raising over $650 million and making it one of the most influential outside groups in American politics. He helped to elect Democrats up and down the ballot, combat voter suppression, and expand civic participation in underrepresented communities. Earlier in his career, he served as Executive Director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee where he demonstrated his belief in a big-tent, state-based approach to politics by supporting candidates like Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Baldwin, Joe Donnelly and Heidi Heitkamp. Guy served as Chief of Staff to Colorado Senator Michael Bennet, and National Political and Field Director for Hillary Clinton's first presidential campaign.
Guy's public affairs and issue advocacy work includes serving as a Principal at the Dewey Square Group and National Field Director for the Children's Defense Fund. A frequent political analyst, he has appeared on MSNBC, CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox News, NPR, and in outlets nationwide.
He currently serves on the boards of Sibley Memorial Hospital and as President of the Board at Foundry United Methodist Church. He has served on the Presidential Advisory County for the Arts and on the boards of Faith Forward, Run for Something, E.L. Haynes PCS, among others. Guy is a graduate of the University of Florida, where he later served as an adjunct lecturer in the Graduate School of Political Science. He lives in Washington, DC, with his husband.