Frequently Asked Questions

Questions, so many questions.

Or maybe just a few. Which is, from our perspective, both perfectly understandable and perfectly welcome. As a Whig organization we believe wholeheartedly in transparency. But even more importantly, as Whigs we believe in the power of dialogue. Answering questions serves to educate our fellow citizens, put the public’s mind at ease and sharpen our own thinking about ourselves.

With that, here are a few common queries we’ve fielded:

Is the Institute just the Modern Whig Party under another name?

No. Political parties exist primarily to run candidates for elective office and to raise and spend money for that purpose. The Institute is barred by law from those activities: we are “absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.” That includes financial contributions to parties or campaigns. And we are also barred from making statements as an organization in favor of or in opposition to any political candidate.

For information on our relationship to the MWP, check out the Our Story section of the website:

Our Story — Modern Whig Institute

If you have any further questions or need any additional clarification, please don’t hesitate to contact us directly. We’re more than happy to address any and all concerns.

Is the Modern Whig Institute a think tank?

Well, yes and no. Mostly no. For one thing, typically think tanks raise money from donors (often just a handful of them) or are funded by parent organizations; our member-supported participatory model is pretty unique in the field. While we plan on eventually creating a structure similar to what we’re used to seeing — we’re going to build out our Policy Halls over time to serve as the in-house home of qualified professional experts — the heart of the Institute will always be the interests, concerns, ideas and innovations of our members themselves.

To that end, we’ve designed our Forums and Roundtables to be easy, user-friendly places where our community can communicate and collaborate online. Our goal is to provide our membership with a platform they can use to organize themselves around the things they care about the most, whether on the local level or more broadly, and create common sense solutions to our social, political and economic challenges.

We also hope our Forums will be the place where Whigs come to hang out during our leisure hours and have a little fun debating the issues. Conversations on social media tend to degenerate pretty quickly into shouting matches and name-calling, and the problem of trolls is a persistent one. We avoid all that by restricting the Forums to members only and using a platform where the community itself moderates the content.

Are the Institute’s officers being paid?

Not at this time. Just as in our days as a political party, everyone involved in the Institute is currently working on a volunteer basis. And it will stay that way until a permanent Board of Directors is elected by our membership.

Under our by-laws, only the permanent Board will have the legitimate authority to establish officer salaries; officers will then be empowered to determine staff compensation, hire outside contractors (subject to Board oversight), etc. Before then, our interim board has the authority to compensate officers for whatever direct (not in-kind) contributions have already made and properly documented.

At no point will a single dime of member contributions find their way into the pockets of Institute officers without prior Board approval. EVER.

What are member contributions used for?

At the moment, most of the money our members have pitched in has gone to maintaining our tech stack — the website, the Forums, our Institute business email accounts (which are a professional upgrade over the usual personal accounts) and our internal communications system (we use Slack). Some of it has gone to our membership development program.

As time goes on we’ll be adding more programs and features. We’ve already talked a little about building out the Policy Halls with paid fellows; other important initiatives are the National Gazette (our own Whig “newspaper of record”) and the Whig Academy — our training platform for current and future public servants.

The faster we grow, the sooner we can get to those things. In the meantime, we’re focused on getting our message out and doing what we can to elevate what we call the Great Conversation: our ongoing and eternal debate about who we are and where we’re going — as a country, a nation and a People.

So, what are Whigs really about?

Phew. This could end up being a pretty long answer, so probably the best thing for you to do is peruse the site. It’s pretty comprehensive to begin with, but we’re always revising or updating the tabs and pages, or even adding new ones. And publishing new content, including blog posts from our members themselves (it’s a perk), is a big part of what we do.

We’re also not afraid to revise even longstanding policy proposals in light of new information, new research, changing circumstances or simply because a better idea emerged from our debates. Unlike many organizations in our field, the Institute plays it straight; when we say we come from a place of discovery, not dogma, we mean it.

That’s doesn’t mean we don’t have an ideology. You can get a pretty clear idea of where we come from on our Principles page, and quite a few historians, writers and journalists (including David Brooks, renowned New York Times columnist and a self-proclaimed Whig) have written extensively on both the fundamentals of our thought and how our thinking has manifested throughout our long history.

One thing is certain: all Whigs, of all stripes, are united in their opposition to tyranny. If you’re looking for a starting point, that’s it.

What does the future hold for the Institute?

That’s largely up to our membership. As an organization we of course have a long-term strategic plan, a timetable, a set of goals and targets and a wish list. Since we’re member-supported the funding to make all those things possible depends on our growth.

Given how much we represent the sensible center — the broad, pragmatic, can-do middle of the spectrum where most Americans live — we hope and believe our fellow citizens will continue to not only support the Institute, but do more and more to make it their own. We are, first and foremost, a community. As is the case with all communities we’ll grow and thrive only to the extent where community pride permits.

In the words of the great management theorist, Peter F. Drucker: “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”

__________________________________________________________________________________________

The Modern Whig Institute is a 501(c)(3) civic research and education foundation dedicated to the fundamental American principles of representative government, ordered liberty, capitalism, due process and the rule of law.