Tomorrow we will have an unusual celebration of Independence Day– unlike any other in American history. Because there are a lot of people who feel that freedom, independence and equality are under threat right now from the people leading our own government. I thought about writing a post about this unprecedented national dilemma for the fourth of July. But this one says it all. It’s called The Founders Warned Us. John Avlon writes eloquently about American history and politics.

I’m a moderate and a centrist at a time when political polarization in America has never seemed more threatening and also sad. One problem with extreme partisanship is that it sometimes forces people out of the center in self-defense. I grew up in a Republican family. But in the 1950s and 1960s that was a different Republican Party. The first campaign button I ever wore proudly proclaimed “I like Ike” at about age 12. As a young mother, I registered as an Independent and, in about 2015 for reasons that are probably obvious, I switched to the Democratic Party. Here are some thoughts from Avlon’s most recent Substack post:

“The Constitution was designed to protect the rights of the people against the rise of a would-be tyrant. The founders understood they were embarking on a rebellious project that had never succeeded before. As John Adams scowled, “There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” It was their aim to build a structure that could withstand the forces that destroyed democracies in the past.

That’s why the founders explicitly warned about the dangers of a demagogue, the poison of hyper-partisanship, the corrosive effects of corruption and foreign influence, the politicization of religion, and the erosion of the separation of powers.

Yes, by those basic standards, we are living through the founders’ nightmare. But the right response is not civic despair but a defiant resolve to reclaim American patriotism and fix what’s been broken so that we can strengthen our democracy to survive the next 250 years.”

Avlon then asks us to consider the Declaration of Independence. And on this topic, I also recommend Professor Danielle Allen’s 2014 book which has been re-issued, Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality. 

Allen looks carefully at the colonists’ grievances against King George III in a way that cannot help but make us think about where we are today. You can buy her book here. Not surprisingly, since I’m also in the middle of a book launch for the second edition of A Soul on Trial, I began to think about the fact that Rosa Sutton had no political equality (aka right to vote in national elections)* in 1907 when she took on the US government. But she had a fierce belief in her own agency as a citizen with certain rights that, at their foundation, came from our Declaration and our First Amendment. You can buy that book in many places.

If somebody asks you whether or not you are proud to be an American these days, when “hyper- partisanship is poison,” no matter what your political persuasion, it’s worth thinking about our Declaration and our founders especially this weekend. As Avlon notes: “In The Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton, Madison, and John Jay repeatedly warned that the greatest danger to a democracy was a demagogue who divided fellow citizens into warring tribes.” Hopefully, you can have some fun with people you care about, regardless of their political views.

* Change was in the air—it’s worth noting that Oregon women in 1907 had more rights than some others in the USA