Democratic Vistas Revisited

So you might have heard, there is an election going on this year in the United States, which got me to thinking that I had not read Walt Whitman's Democratic Vistas in quite a while. If you have not read it, I highly recommend doing so. It's kind of long for an essay, and Whitman rambles a bit, but there is just so much good stuff in it, that it's worth the effort.

Among other things in the essay, Whitman calls for a truly American Literature to be created:

Our fundamental want to-day in the United States, with closest, amplest reference to present conditions, and to the future, is of a class, and the clear idea of a class, of native authors, literatures, far different, far higher in grade than any yet known, sacerdotal, modern, fit to cope with our occasions, lands, permeating the whole mass of American mentality...

This was the idea behind his publishing Leaves of Grass--to create a truly American Literature. I'm sure that we could probably agree on some writers who have contributed to the effort in the last 150 years. I would be curious to know who you think has lived up to Whitman's charge in creating a new American Literature. And futhermore, do you think that the American writer today has any responsibility to shape the American psyche, and in doing so, even influence how our country is governed?