Heather Cox Richardson – Page 2

Riding on this election?

Nothing less than our survival.

Aldo Leopold Shack and Restored Prairie. Photo by Susan Feathers

The rights of individuals as written in the U.S. Constitution and a system of secular governance and freedom of religion are the principles at the heart of the American Republic.

Our European ancestors and writers of the Constitution had all lived under the tyranny of kings and queens and the Church, often in cahoots with an authoritarian government.

The Constitution was written to free individuals from those bonds to determine their own lives within a system of laws and justice. Protestant or Catholic, Jew or Muslim, atheist or agnostic, Calvanist or Puritan, Amish or Mennonite, and so on… each with the freedom to pursue their religious lives. The Bill of Rights freed citizens to determine for themselves how to live their lives. As long as a citizen’s choices did not infringe on another’s, they were free to pursue ideas and courses of action to develop happiness and meaning. Actions, property, social norms were subject to laws that protect individuals’ freedoms.

This is what is unique about American governance: at its core is the belief that all persons are created equal.

At the heart of the MAGA Republican movement is the rejection of this principle. All men are not equal and, America should be a Christian country.

UNDERSTAND THAT THE INTENT OF THE MAGA REPUBLICANS IS TO END THE FORM OF GOVERNANCE ESTABLISHED IN THE CONSTITUTION.

What are the actions promised by the candidate they support:

End all restrictions on oil and gas development;
Slash and Burn the institutions of the Republic and replace them with an authoriarian governing system;
Further suppress women’s reproductive rights including birth control;
Rid the government of environmental and climate change experts, departments and regulations associated with them. We are free to kill ourselves, our families, fellow human, plant and animal lives on planet Earth.
Support authoritarian leaders and governments. Putin and Russia, Kim Jong Un and North Korea; Viktor Orbán and Hungary; Xi Jingping and China. All enemies of democracy.

ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION? THIS IS NOT A NORMAL ELECTION. THIS IS ABOUT THE LOSS OF OUR DEMOCRACY AND OUR WAY OF LIFE!

Listen to historian Heather Cox Richardson and historian Jeffrey Rosen interviewed by Ken Burns. Richardson published Democracy Awakening and Jeff Rosen, The Pursuit of Happiness this year. They remind us what democracy is and how we always agreed about these principles among our political parties. We debated how those principles should be carried out and protected, generation after generation. This was the American Project. Now, one party intends to destroy these governing principle for an autocracy.

New Orleans Book Festival

Today’s Great Americans

Heather Cox Richardson is one of America’s most trustworthy and insightful voices for democracy in our current struggle to preserve and restore democratic institutions in the U.S.A. She is a historian, professor at Boston College, and author of the recent book, Democracy Awakening.

Heather publishes a daily Letters from An American on Substack. I rely on her daily digest of the day’s events put into a historical context. Heather examines our present struggle to protect democratic governance with a long view from the founders to the present leadership. She shows us a longer trajectory and reminds us that we the people have agency to shape our future. Most importantly, she corrects misinformation, clears the clouds of half-truths.

February 1, 2024

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_Cox_Richardson

A Consequential Discussion on FB with Heather Cox Richardson, historian and exemplary citizen. Followed by David McCullough at the Library of Congress!

Heather Cox Richardson: Listen to the very very end. We all must become vocal with our families and neighbors — in the way that democracy was formed and has been more or less sustained until the forces of authoritarianism began a kind of rot in the foundation of the American republic. We are poised now on the edge of collapse of all we have lived and died for and love with all our hearts: the belief in the equality of all persons and a government of laws by which we agree to abide, no matter WHO WE ARE.

Read the Tea Leaves of our unfolding fate: either a democracy that prevails even through the assault of despots and misinformation campaigns, or the loss of the great experiment of ideas and ideals that have made our system of governing so rare and necessary in this world.

Heather Cox Richardson on FB on Politics: August 9, 2022 – listen to the end.

Then, here is a quintessential discussion about democracy, John Adams and the model he and our founders set for us as citizens, about how we teach (or don’t teach) history, and how McCullough thinks America will pull through this turbulent time.

David McCullough is a national treasure. Thank God he left behind his wonderful books. Check them out and read now to help us all return to the recognition that government is US, not some other person or even our representatives. This is OUR SHOW. But the audience has been missing for too long. Let’s reach for our stars and keep this democracy for our children and generations to come. And, by doing the best thing possible: talk to each other about what you believe and want. And do so with respect and a listening ear. We could be on the same page: not the same issues, but the principles by which we govern ourselves, guarded at all cost.