The Civic Muscle That Crisis Reveals
Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria reminds us of the limits of federal power, and that we as citizens are more powerful than we realize.
Gracious reader,
Warm regards from San Juan, Puerto Rico!
It is our first time here, and the island feels alive in a way that is hard to describe without being here. Cultures meet and layer on top of one another. History is present in the architecture, in the food, in the rhythm of the streets. It sits, quite literally, on the edge of empire, shaped by forces far beyond itself and yet distinctly its own.
Being here, I found myself thinking about Hurricane Maria—a crisis that brought this small island to its knees in 2018. I reflect on Maria as something that happened in these very streets and devastated the beautiful people that inhabit them.
Over 3,000 people died. The electrical grid collapsed. Power was out for months. Roads were blocked. Entire communities were cut off from one another. It was not just a storm. It was a systemic failure that exposed how fragile the underlying infrastructure had become.
At the time, I was working in the federal government. I sat in weekly crisis response meetings, part of a task force trying to determine how federal resources could help Puerto Rico the many other states affected by Maria.
Every week we would meet for updates, and week by week, a meekness and humility slowly suffused the room as we realized something uncomfortable but important:
There was very little we at the federal level could do to help those facing post-hurricane crisis.
In my office, the most meaningful action we could take was temporarily easing reporting requirements so local leaders could focus on survival rather than paperwork. That was the scale of our impact relative to the scale of the crisis.
It was a moment that clarified two sentiments I had long felt but now had lived experience to put words to.
First, there are limits to what centralized systems can do, especially in moments of acute, widespread need.
Second, in moments of crisis and beyond, everyday citizens are far more powerful than we realize.
A Story of Human Resilience
During Maria, as formal systems strained or broke, something older and more fundamental held.
Neighbors showed up.
People checked on the elderly. They cared for the sick and injured. They shared what little they had. In the absence of electricity, communities built improvised networks using generators and long chains of extension cords, powering multiple homes at once so families could preserve food and maintain some sense of normal life.
It was not coordinated from above. It was not mandated. It was not managed.
It was people seeing each other as fellow human beings in need, and rising to the occasion to help them.
There is a long tradition of observing this uniquely American phenomenon. Alexis de Tocqueville noted, in his study of early America, that when faced with a problem, people did not instinctively turn to the state. They turned to one another. They formed associations. They acted.
They exercised what we might call a civic muscle.
Puerto Rico, in that moment, showed that this muscle is not theoretical. It is alive, real, and moments of crisis reveal that it is strong.
A competing view
Years earlier, before my time in federal government, I was studying public policy at the London School of Economics. There, as all good educations ought to do, I encountered perspectives different from my own. A classmate shared an alternative interpretation of situations of citizen action in the face of need.
In discussing private citizen responses to public need, they remarked that the presence of many soup kitchens in a city like Edinburgh was a sign of failure. In their view, if private actors were meeting public needs, it meant the government was not doing its job. It was a sign of government failure, not citizen power—and a sign of a healthy democracy defined by trust and care of fellow citizens for one another. Others nodded in vigorous agreement.
Their assumption deserves scrutiny.
It treats human initiative to help their fellow man as a problem to be solved rather than a strength to be cultivated.
It assumes that care should flow primarily through systems rather than relationships.
I see it differently.
The existence of civic action is not evidence of failure. It is evidence of capacity. It’s a reason to hope.
A healthy society is not one where people wait to be helped by centralized authority. It is one where people are able, willing, and seek out and identify needs — and then rise to the occasion, habituated to fill those needs themselves.
Certainly at times, government has a role.
But it cannot be the first and only line of response.
It is too distant. Too slow. Too constrained. I saw this firsthand when I was in government, and felt feckless, hopeless in the face of widespread need.
And, as these crises show, too limited.
What crisis reveals
We saw the same pattern during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020.
The need was vast and immediate. No institution could meet it alone.
Local communities stepped in. Neighbors organized check-in systems for the elderly. Restaurants delivered meals to people who could not leave their homes. Grocery stores adapted. Informal networks to meet the widespread need formed almost overnight.
This is not accidental.
In moments of crisis, the abstractions fall away. What remains is the fabric of human connection.
These moments reveal who we are when the scripts are gone.
And what they reveal is not only vulnerability, but ingenuity, generosity, resilience—and citizen power.
The Insight
This is not only a story about disaster response.
It is a story about democracy.
At the Civic Renaissance retreat last weekend, we gathered over 50 leaders from across politics, geography, and vocation. Mayors, journalists, educators, community builders. People who are tired of waiting for distant solutions to local problems.
One insight surfaced again and again.
We are going to have to relearn democracy.
Not as something that happens in Washington, or even at City Hall, but as something that begins with the individual.
You cannot control national politics. You cannot control global crises. Often, you cannot even fully control local institutions.
But you can control how you show up—both in times of need and in the everyday.
You can check on your neighbor. You can build relationships before a crisis comes. You can strengthen the informal networks that make formal systems more resilient.
This is not secondary work.
It is primary.
The citizen is prior to the state. Institutions reflect the character and habits of the people who sustain them.
If that layer is weak, no policy can compensate for it.
If that layer is strong, even weak systems can hold.
What Puerto Rico reminds us
Walking through San Juan now, you see beauty, culture, joy. You also see a place that has endured.
The memory of Maria is not only a story of loss. It is a story of what people did for one another when everything else failed.
That is worth remembering, and worth celebrating.
Not because crisis is good, but because it reveals capacities we risk forgetting in times of comfort.
The work of Civic Renaissance is to cultivate those capacities before crises are forced upon us.
To build communities where showing up for one another is not an exception, but a habit.
To create an era of flourishing across difference, starting with what is right in front of us.
Your family. Your street. Your city.
That is where resilience begins.
In the news:
C-SPAN Washington Journal: Lexi Hudson Discusses Civility in American Politics
Author Alexandra Hudson discusses efforts to promote civility in American politics considering heated political rhetoric and its potential ties to acts of political violence.
Art Life Faith Podcast: The Soul of Civility with Alexandra Hudson
Welcome to the Art Life Faith podcast, and I’m your host, Roger Lowther. In this episode I had the privilege of having a conversation with Alexandra Hudson, or Lexi, the author of “The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves.” A number of weeks ago, she was passing through Tokyo on vacation with her family when she was gracious enough to sit down with me and talk about the various themes in her book and then lead an Art Life Faith event right afterward.
Fox 21 News: Reclaiming Civility: Cultivating connection and respect in Colorado Springs
Fox 59: 11th annual Fairbanks Symposium- Watch here
A media interview about The Civic Renaissance Tour Launch in Indianapolis
A podcast interview with Michael Lee of the University of Charleston, When We Disagree Podcast: The Soul of Civility, Tested
What does civility demand when justice is costly and deeply personal? Alexandra Hudson, author of The Soul of Civility and founder of Civic Renaissance, shares a raw story about how being scammed sparked both a lengthy legal battle and a profound disagreement with her husband over whether to fight or walk away. Through that conflict, Hudson wrestles with whether civility means politeness or principled confrontation, and what it costs our families when moral crusades take over our lives. The episode explores civility not as courteousness or softness, but as disciplined respect for human dignity even when the stakes are high and the gloves stay firmly on.
Review of The Soul of Civility in Indiana Capital Chronicle: With all due respect
Hudson is not alone in her pursuit for civility. A recent surveyshared by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute’s Center on Civility and Democracy reported that 72% of Americans want to see more civility in our nation’s politics. The same survey found that Americans are divided on their outlook for our nation’s future, split nearly in half over whether to be optimistic or pessimistic about our ability to come together.
Review of The Soul of civility in Bitterroot Star: Disagree better
Our community is full of independent people who don’t like being told what to think. That’s a strength. But independence only works if we can argue honestly without tearing each other apart in the process. This book doesn’t offer a program or a slogan. It offers a reminder of the habits that make self-government possible.
Year Ago on Civic Renaissance:
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