250 Years On, Can Democracy Hold? (with Joanne Freeman)
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A NOTE FROM THE PRODUCER
Celine Rohr is the Deputy Editor for Stay Tuned with Preet Bharara.
As America approaches the 250th anniversary of its founding, urgent questions about democracy, civic virtues, and political integrity loom.
This week on Stay Tuned, Yale historian Joanne Freeman joins Preet Bharara to discuss the continued relevance of the Declaration of Independence and how their fears of demagogues, political polarization, and civic disengagement resonate today. They also explore the forgotten power of “We the People” and the role of public opinion in sustaining a democratic republic.
Reflecting on the Declaration’s famous assertion that “all men are created equal,” Freeman argues that the document’s ideals mattered even when the nation failed to live up to them:
“Once those ideals were there, once they were represented as part of what the United States is, then all kinds of marginalized people can point to them and say, ‘Well, that represents us too. You can’t say that that’s what the country is and deny that to us.’”
Freeman and Preet then discuss the Federalist Papers, the origins of America’s two-party system, and why democracy’s fragility is not a flaw but a defining feature. As Freeman puts it:
“Democracies are fragile. They are grounded on us. Public opinion rules. Americans have forgotten the power that we the people have when we come together.”
Listen to the episode, and as always, comment below with your thoughts and questions.
Become a paying member to get access to Preet and Joyce Vance’s weekly Insider podcast and more exclusive content. On this week’s Stay Tuned bonus, exclusively for paying subscribers, Preet and historian Joanne Freeman discuss President George Washington’s remarkable and prescient decision to relinquish power.
Bonus: The Decision That Defined the Republic (with Joanne Freeman)
In the Stay Tuned podcast bonus for Insiders, Preet and historian Joanne Freeman discuss President George Washington’s remarkable and prescient decision to relinquish power.
It’s time.
“That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness…
“But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government.”