The Builders' Republic
Railroads, canals, rockets and now artificial intelligence. America does best when it builds.
Every era has technologies that decide who leads. In the nineteenth century it was railroads and steel. In the twentieth it was aircraft, the atom and the microchip. In this century it is artificial intelligence, spaceflight and cheap, abundant energy.
- 1825Erie Canal
- 1869Transcontinental Railroad
- 1914Panama Canal
- 1936Hoover Dam
- 1956Interstate Highway System
- 1969Apollo 11
- NextAI, reactors and ships
Today's American founders in rockets, electric vehicles and AI are showing again what ambition can do. We honor that. We also want it tied to the national interest. The defining technologies of this century should be invented, built and controlled here.
- Build the energy that new industry needs, including a new generation of nuclear plants.
- Keep the most advanced AI and computing on American soil and under American law.
- Fix the permitting system that makes building anything in America slow and expensive.
Lincoln signed the railroad and the land-grant colleges into law in the middle of a civil war. We can build reactors and power lines in peacetime.
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