Potential Modifiers for Toolkit

Claude:

On the modifier for toolkit — let me think out loud about what the modifier is actually doing before suggesting. You need a word that signals "this is for how we live together" without triggering left-coded associations (society, civic, community, collective) or right-coded ones (patriot, national, traditional). Most words that sound neutral aren't — civic reads as NPR-listener, community reads as nonprofit-grant-writer. Some candidates worth weighing:

Hometown toolkit — concrete, scale-appropriate, cross-aisle. Everyone has a hometown; the word doesn't load politically; it implies the scale at which most of this actually has to work. Probably my favorite.

Working toolkit — as in "what's working." Doubles as a verb. "Our working toolkit" implies both functional and in-progress. Light, modest, blue-collar-friendly.

Neighbor's toolkit — borrows from "good neighbor" which is one of the few phrases that genuinely travels across the political divide. Slightly folksy, which may or may not fit your voice.

Household toolkit — extends the metaphor honestly. A household has rules, money, decisions, conflicts, and members who can leave. Robert Reich-types and Wendell Berry-types both use household language without flinching. Risks sounding small but that smallness is the bottom-up principle in disguise.

Common toolkit — does double duty as "shared" and as "ordinary, not fancy." "Commons" is left-coded; "common" mostly isn't. Tight, plain.

Self-government toolkit — most precise to your actual subject. "Self-government" is one of the rare phrases that the founders' rhetoric, the libertarian right, the cooperative left, and the indigenous-sovereignty conversation all use approvingly. Probably the strongest cross-aisle word in American English for what you're actually pointing at.

If I had to pick one I'd put self-government toolkit in the lead and hometown toolkit as the more emotionally inviting alternate. They do different work: self-government signals seriousness and constitutional gravity; hometown signals scale and warmth. You might end up using both depending on audience.

NextStacks is fine to keep — it's earned its place in your vocabulary and the camelcase makes it a recognizable proper noun rather than a generic word. Don't second-guess that.