I spend most of my time writing about historic figures. Sometimes we ask ourselves, “did they know they were making history? Or were they too busy with daily lives to see the bigger picture?” Sometimes they didn’t. But my main characters (George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, etc.) knew their actions mattered. They knew they were living through historic moments. They knew their actions would change the world and they knew their choices would be documented in the history books. I can say, with complete certainty, we are living through one such moment.
Hello Lindsay, it's nice to share a few thoughts with you after listening to you talk with Clay so many times. I am taking note of this:
Just a quick reminder that authors don’t choose their headlines!
“The U.S. Constitution Just Might Be Fatally Fucked Up,”
....and while I get that you probably would have chosen more elegant wording, I also think that this particular headline may actually get more directly to the Point of Our Moment than the article itself.
I write occasionally about American history and current events, and posted an item on my own blog for this year's 4th of July (before taking 40 of my best friends to a ballgame for the occasion):
"Murica! It really is the best idea anybody’s ever come up with for a country – even if its origins are steeped in contradictions, and even as the institutions that were formed to implement those ideas have outlived the compromises that were necessary accommodate those contradictions."
Point being: between the lopsided representations in the Senate, the persistence Electoral College, the lifetime appointments to SCOTUS and the insanely 'unconstitutional' filibuster, we are no longer a majority ruled nation and there is little prospect of that dilemma correcting itself in our (well, my - I'm considerably older than you) lifetimes.
Your article focuses more on the abandonment of unwritten norms, and I don't disagree with the premise. But as I see it the more fundamental problem is that the mechanisms those norms are baed on have reached a point of obsolescence, and that is how/why the norms of which you speak are so easily distorted.
Or, as. certain headline writer cut to the chase: the Constitution at this point really may be fatally fucked up.
And the path to fixing it looks even more perilous than our current plight.
Thank you for your good work and an opportunity to share a thought or three.
The question is: Will we always have a Jefferson, Lincoln or FDR - will we always have a Raskin, Liz Cheney or Raffensperger - always have a John Dean, Eugene Goodman and Cassidy Hutchinson - to step up and save our democracy?
A Historic Moment
Just 3 words - You are amazing. . . . perhaps a few more words - I truly enjoy listening to you when you appear on the Jefferson Hour!!!!!!
Hello Lindsay, it's nice to share a few thoughts with you after listening to you talk with Clay so many times. I am taking note of this:
Just a quick reminder that authors don’t choose their headlines!
“The U.S. Constitution Just Might Be Fatally Fucked Up,”
....and while I get that you probably would have chosen more elegant wording, I also think that this particular headline may actually get more directly to the Point of Our Moment than the article itself.
I write occasionally about American history and current events, and posted an item on my own blog for this year's 4th of July (before taking 40 of my best friends to a ballgame for the occasion):
https://www.incorrigiblearts.com/2022/07/03/america-its-still-a-good-idea/
...in which I make this convoluted statement:
"Murica! It really is the best idea anybody’s ever come up with for a country – even if its origins are steeped in contradictions, and even as the institutions that were formed to implement those ideas have outlived the compromises that were necessary accommodate those contradictions."
Point being: between the lopsided representations in the Senate, the persistence Electoral College, the lifetime appointments to SCOTUS and the insanely 'unconstitutional' filibuster, we are no longer a majority ruled nation and there is little prospect of that dilemma correcting itself in our (well, my - I'm considerably older than you) lifetimes.
Your article focuses more on the abandonment of unwritten norms, and I don't disagree with the premise. But as I see it the more fundamental problem is that the mechanisms those norms are baed on have reached a point of obsolescence, and that is how/why the norms of which you speak are so easily distorted.
Or, as. certain headline writer cut to the chase: the Constitution at this point really may be fatally fucked up.
And the path to fixing it looks even more perilous than our current plight.
Thank you for your good work and an opportunity to share a thought or three.
--PS
The question is: Will we always have a Jefferson, Lincoln or FDR - will we always have a Raskin, Liz Cheney or Raffensperger - always have a John Dean, Eugene Goodman and Cassidy Hutchinson - to step up and save our democracy?
Also, I would write and say "An Historic Moment"!