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Our Founders' Warning: The Age of Reason Meets the Age of Trump
The presidency of Donald Trump has wreaked havoc on American democracy, divided American society, unsettled foreign allies and partners, and heartened dictators around the world. The damage at home and abroad is likely to cast a long shadow into the future. Trump has also defiled the past, most notably America's origin and its soul.
The Founders counted on their successors to protect and perfect their prodigy with its fundamental ideals, laws, and procedures. They also aspired to a code of personal morals and character. Paramount were honesty, rationality, empathy, and responsibility to the citizenry.
These liberal, revolutionary criteria for public service and leadership derived from the European Enlightenment. The spirit of that movement and its American version is alien to Trump, and many of his predecessors would find him abhorrent and dangerous.
Strobe Talbott tells that story from the vantage of the Age of Trump, bringing out the stark contrast between the 45th president and the first six--Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, John Quincy Adams, who were children of the Age of Reason.
Amid myriad books on the Trump phenomenon in these dark days, Talbott shines a light on our history in hope that the Founders' legacy, now in peril, will be vindicated.
The Founders counted on their successors to protect and perfect their prodigy with its fundamental ideals, laws, and procedures. They also aspired to a code of personal morals and character. Paramount were honesty, rationality, empathy, and responsibility to the citizenry.
These liberal, revolutionary criteria for public service and leadership derived from the European Enlightenment. The spirit of that movement and its American version is alien to Trump, and many of his predecessors would find him abhorrent and dangerous.
Strobe Talbott tells that story from the vantage of the Age of Trump, bringing out the stark contrast between the 45th president and the first six--Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, John Quincy Adams, who were children of the Age of Reason.
Amid myriad books on the Trump phenomenon in these dark days, Talbott shines a light on our history in hope that the Founders' legacy, now in peril, will be vindicated.
- GenresNonfictionHistory
220 pages, Hardcover
Published June 2, 2020
4 people are currently reading
9 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 19, 2020
Strobe Talbott provides an excellent summary of the philosophies that provided the foundation for the thinking of America's founders and how those philosophies guided them as they declared their independence and wrote our nation's Constitution. He also shows how those ideals have been trashed by our current president who violates every principle held by our founders that are embodied in the Constitution.
October 18, 2020
About a month ago, I began reading, and rereading, all I could about the principles and the history of the “American experiment” of self-government. I wanted to understand what we all have at stake in the looming presidential election that is now only two weeks away.
I have a strong intuition that we have lost our way as a country, as a people, and I wondered if we would find our way back again to “our better angels”, to use Lincoln’s phrase. I sense that the answers are hidden in plain sight within our common history. History, as Mark Twain observed, doesn’t repeat but it does rhyme. Or as William Faulkner said, “The past is never dead; it’s not even past”.
I first began reading summaries of the ideas of the European philosophers of the Enlightenment (Rousseau, Locke, Montesquieu, and others) whose writings had so inspired the founders our country.
I next read Strobe Talbot’s book “Our Founder’s Warning: the Age of Reason Meets the Age of Trump” which starkly contrasts the vision of the founders (George Washington, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and others) with the wrecking ball politics of Trump and his supporters. Next I read Jon Meacham’s “The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels” which took me from the founding to the present analyzing the struggles and triumphs of our most influential presidents.
These two books have made me realize that democracy declines when the people no longer tend to it’s care and it’s wellbeing. After leaving the White House, Harry Truman retired to his home in Independence Missouri and began writing his memoirs. Two quotes that I jotted down that I think describe where we are today are:
“The country has to awaken every now and then to the fact that the people are responsible for the government they get. And when they elect a man to the presidency who doesn’t take care of the job, they’ve got nobody to blame but themselves.”
“The people have often made mistakes but given time and the facts, they will make the corrections.”
I’ve learned much from this review of history. First is the shocking realization of how abysmal the current president is from all 44 of his predecessors. Yes, America has seen some pretty awful times and weathered presidential incompetence and malfeasance before but this is by far the lowest point that this Republic has ever fallen. Even Richard Nixon had respect and knowledge of the history and nature of this country’s government. We are losing something we have always taken for granted, that we, the people, are the government and if those who we elect to high office, through incompetence or evil intent, threaten to steer the ship onto the rocks, then we must bear some of the blame. Eleanor Roosevelt said “Great leaders we have had, but we could not have had great leaders unless they had a great people to follow. You cannot be a great leader unless the people are great.”
Jon Meacham wrote in “The Soul of America”:
“To know what has come before is to be armed against despair. If the men and women of the past, with all their flaws and limitations and ambitions and appetites, could press on through ignorance and superstition, racism and sexism, selfishness and greed, to create a freer, stronger nation, then perhaps we, too, can right wrongs and take another step toward that most enchanting and elusive destinations: a more perfect Union.”
Yesterday, after my wife and I had filled them out, I drove north to our county seat with our completed ballots and my thoughts were filled with all I had recently re-learned and as I dropped them in the “official ballot drop box” I felt that this simple act of voting can make a difference. After everything that we have been witness to in the past four years, watching with sorrow as the devils of willful ignorance, political expediency and corruption pushed aside the better angels of equality, truth and the common good, I felt I had struck back with a weapon put in my hands by those who envisioned a democracy that would stand against the tyranny they feared. To think that such a simple thing, such a small task, could feel so empowering.
I have a strong intuition that we have lost our way as a country, as a people, and I wondered if we would find our way back again to “our better angels”, to use Lincoln’s phrase. I sense that the answers are hidden in plain sight within our common history. History, as Mark Twain observed, doesn’t repeat but it does rhyme. Or as William Faulkner said, “The past is never dead; it’s not even past”.
I first began reading summaries of the ideas of the European philosophers of the Enlightenment (Rousseau, Locke, Montesquieu, and others) whose writings had so inspired the founders our country.
I next read Strobe Talbot’s book “Our Founder’s Warning: the Age of Reason Meets the Age of Trump” which starkly contrasts the vision of the founders (George Washington, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and others) with the wrecking ball politics of Trump and his supporters. Next I read Jon Meacham’s “The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels” which took me from the founding to the present analyzing the struggles and triumphs of our most influential presidents.
These two books have made me realize that democracy declines when the people no longer tend to it’s care and it’s wellbeing. After leaving the White House, Harry Truman retired to his home in Independence Missouri and began writing his memoirs. Two quotes that I jotted down that I think describe where we are today are:
“The country has to awaken every now and then to the fact that the people are responsible for the government they get. And when they elect a man to the presidency who doesn’t take care of the job, they’ve got nobody to blame but themselves.”
“The people have often made mistakes but given time and the facts, they will make the corrections.”
I’ve learned much from this review of history. First is the shocking realization of how abysmal the current president is from all 44 of his predecessors. Yes, America has seen some pretty awful times and weathered presidential incompetence and malfeasance before but this is by far the lowest point that this Republic has ever fallen. Even Richard Nixon had respect and knowledge of the history and nature of this country’s government. We are losing something we have always taken for granted, that we, the people, are the government and if those who we elect to high office, through incompetence or evil intent, threaten to steer the ship onto the rocks, then we must bear some of the blame. Eleanor Roosevelt said “Great leaders we have had, but we could not have had great leaders unless they had a great people to follow. You cannot be a great leader unless the people are great.”
Jon Meacham wrote in “The Soul of America”:
“To know what has come before is to be armed against despair. If the men and women of the past, with all their flaws and limitations and ambitions and appetites, could press on through ignorance and superstition, racism and sexism, selfishness and greed, to create a freer, stronger nation, then perhaps we, too, can right wrongs and take another step toward that most enchanting and elusive destinations: a more perfect Union.”
Yesterday, after my wife and I had filled them out, I drove north to our county seat with our completed ballots and my thoughts were filled with all I had recently re-learned and as I dropped them in the “official ballot drop box” I felt that this simple act of voting can make a difference. After everything that we have been witness to in the past four years, watching with sorrow as the devils of willful ignorance, political expediency and corruption pushed aside the better angels of equality, truth and the common good, I felt I had struck back with a weapon put in my hands by those who envisioned a democracy that would stand against the tyranny they feared. To think that such a simple thing, such a small task, could feel so empowering.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews