The American Experiment Is Worth Believing In

The book under discussion this week will also have a patriotic theme. That book is City on a Hill A History of American Exceptionalism by Abraham von Engels. But before either the dialogue with Jeffrey Goldberg or the book discussion, some opening thoughts on this memorable and momentous anniversary. The two hundred fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence has been shaping up as, well, frankly, somewhere between an embarrassment and a fiasco.

It's marked by a military defeat in the Middle East, President Trump's lost war against Iran, and at home it's been made ridiculous by the the algae in the reflecting pool before the Lincoln Memorial, by the uh mixed martial arts arts fight on the w White House lawn, by the ripping down of the east wing of the White House. By generally scandal and shame and embarrassment by this underattended state fair that has been such a spectacular failure on the on the Washington Mall.

It all seems a kinda way of driving home that this is not this twenty fiftyth anniversary is not one of the prouder moments in American history. In fact, it's one of the grimier moments in American history. And if that's the way you're feeling, if you're not enjoying this uh occasion as much as you would like to, as much as you wish you should, as much as we all as we all wish we could, um, I want to offer a consoling thought.

By taking us back to some other low or another low moment in American history, and a reminder of how things that seem like won't low moments often have strange ways of providentially working out for the betterment of Americans and for humanity.

One of the low moments in American history I often think about is the year eighteen fifty. The year eighteen fifty is the year of the famous compromise of eighteen fifty. That is a a set set of laws, five laws in total, they were passed by Congress. to tidy up the rancor and disputes left behind by the Mexican American War that it added the entire Southwest Territory, but is now the Southwestern states of the United States to the United States.

Uh among the notable elements of the compromise of eighteen fifty were the admission of California to the Union as a free state. but also a federal fugitive slave law that empowered federal authorities and federal courts to seize um people who had escaped bondage, seize them anywhere in the country, even in a free uh in a free state,

Um and under federal under federal warrants and with federal marshals to put them back on a boat and send them back to the bondage they had escaped. Um it was a moment i uh it was a moment of tremendous national shame. Um it's a moment st that still resonates with pain in American history. The compromise of eighteen fifty was passed through the Senate and one of its leading advocates was Daniel Webster, a longtime anti slavery national.

And supporters and believers in Daniel Webster were so horrified by Webster's seeming about face that one of them, the poet John Greenleaf Whittier, wrote a poem about the event, which I'd like to quote to you now. It sort of gives you a sense of s a past moment of feelings of abandonment and betrayal. The poem is titled Ichabod. Ichabod is a is a name from um the book of Samuel in in the Jewish Bible.

And is it's a phrase is a name that basically means the glory has departed. Um so the man who is being referred to, Daniel Webster, his glory has departed, he is now a kabod. I'll read just a few lines from the poem. So fallen, so lost, the light withdrawn which once he wore, the glory from his grey hairs gone for evermore. Of all we loved and honored, naught save power remains, a fallen angel's pride of thought, still strong and changed.

All else is gone from those great eyes, the soul has fled. When faith is lost, when honor dies, the man is dead. Then pay the reverence of old days to his dead fame, walk backwards with averted gaze, and hide the shame. How often have you thought over the past decade that when faith is lost, when honor dies, the man is dead, and that we are walking backward to hide the shame? Um and that that that feeling is so intense, th those those words are so powerful.

We can feel again what it must have been like to have been a believer in the American idea in eighteen fifty, and to see your country fasten national slavery, or seemingly fashion national slavery, upon itself as a compromise of Congress, as a way to avoid civil war in the year eighteen fifty.

uh over the spoils of the Mexican War. So here's the consoling thought. The compromise of eighteen fifty did avoid a Civil War at that moment, but it didn't avoid the Civil War forever. The war came eleven years later.

But in the intervening eleven years, the North underwent a tremendous industrial and transportation expansion. The number of the railway lines, iron manufacturing, textile, shipbuilding, and Everything, the entire material basis for the ultimate Northern victory in the Civil War and the destruction of slavery, that was laid down in those d uh eleven years but after the compromise of eighteen fifty, and would not have happened.

The war was postponed, it was postponed until a time when the North could win, and all of American history, all of the all of the best elements of American history were made possible by the seemingly sordid act in eighteen fifty. It's often hard for living human beings. It's always hard for living human beings to understand what's around the corner.

But what fate may hold for them, at this moment of national grime, of national shame, of national squalor, of scandal and corruption, who knows what possibilities are building for us? If we lose faith in the American idea that inspired so many people before, we will s d we may tarnish or compromise or even destroy the possibility of the fulfillment of the American ideal for those who come after. We have to keep believing, and even when it's difficult, we'll have to

Um we have to believe that what was done before was more difficult than what must must be done now. America can be itself again. America can be restored to itself again. That's the thought I'll be keeping in mind this coming fourth of July. Whittier, by the way, the man who wrote Ichabod, he rediscovered his faith too.

He lived to see the end of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery. And he wrote a poem w one more poem about the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. I'd like to read one stanza from that that maybe maybe is applicable to our situation now. He wrote after the passage of the thirteenth Amendment. Blotted out, all within and all about shall a fresher life begin, freer breathes the universe as it rolls its heavy curse on the dead and buried sin.

Well, nothing's ever blotted out, and sins are never truly dead and buried. They always have a way of

reemerging and haunting the living, but they can be overcome, they can be left behind, and better ways can be found. The national commitment on this two hundred and fiftieth anniversary is to find a future where we rediscover how much there is to be proud of in the American experience in American history, and how much progress still to be made and to achieve, not just for Americans, but for all of humanity.

All of humanity has its eyes on this country, all of humanity has its hopes on this country. As America goes, so go the hopes of human freedom. Believe in that, work for that, hope for that, trust in that. I hope you have a glorious Fourth of July celebration. And now my dialogue with Jeffrey Goldman.

The most astounding cur spook scoop of his storied career popped unbidden onto a smartphone when someone added him to a super secret signal chat planning the Trump administration's airstrike on Yemen. Jeff Goldberg is the author of Prisoners, a memoir of friendship across the Israeli-Palestinian divide, and the host of the weekly PBS program Washington Week with the Atlantic.

It's been my honor and privilege to work with him and for him over this past decade. Jeff, welcome to the David From Show.

Described its future politics as the Atlantic will be the organ of no party or clique, but will honestly endeavor to be the exponent of what its conductors believe to be the American idea. Now, at this point in history, that may sound like empty rhetoric, the American idea, but in fact, in eighteen fifty seven, that phrase had real bite.

The phrase the American idea was borrowed from a minister, a unitarian minister named Theodore Parker, who delivered a speech by the title The American Idea to an abolitionist convention in eighteen fifty. And as Parker expounded the American idea, it was a not a vague or imprecise concept at all. Parker began by s quoting the language of the Declaration of Independence that will mark its two hundred and fiftieth anniversary this coming weekend.

about all men are created equal, and then he explained what that had to mean. And what that meant was democracy, still a very inflammatory term in eighteen fifty. And by democracy, he said, Parker said, democracy demands, these are Parker's words, as it proximate organization thereof. A government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people.

Now most of us know that phrase from the Gettysburg Address in slightly tighter form, but it was Parker who wrote it in the first place, and Lincoln consciously borrowed it from Parker. And this was meant this phrase was meant to apply to all people, women as well as men, the enslaved as well as the free.

It had foreign policy implications too. Parker talked about the recent war with Mexico, which he condemned. He talked about American plans to annex Cuba, which he also condemned, that American power in the world needed to be an idea for a force for freedom. So this is all a long setup to say. That phrase, the American idea, once had bite and purchase. Do you think, Jeff, that it still has bite and purchase today?

cynical executive we have ever had. I'm I'm hesitant to say ever had because I don't know the level of cynicism of many nineteenth century presidents, for instance. But we have not to jump right into it, but we have an anomalous situation right now in which we have a president who in a weird way to his credit, doesn't pay lip service to ideas he doesn't hold.

Uh there's an strange honesty about his transactionalism uh and his cynicism about democracy and about America's role in the world and about Creedal nationalism and all of the rest, things I I suppose we're gonna get to talk about. But um in the absence uh the the the the absence of this kind of

idealism, the absence of this goal really highlights what we've taken for granted in our lifetimes at least. Even in the bad times. You know, you go through good times, you go through bad times, you go through mistakes, you go through depressions, uh, you go through periods of triumph as a country, but I think we always assumed that we were different and that we held ourselves to a higher standard and we felt badly as a country when we didn't meet those higher standards.

that it says and has said explicitly in rare rare endorsement editorials, this presidency is opposed to. It that this presidency is not part of the American idea. So how do you as an editor, how do you balance The determination to be of no party or clique versus the fact that you say, We're with the American idea, and the people who hold power over the country are opposed to that American idea.

to some degree. We live in again an anomalous situation in which uh the Democrats, for all of their faults and small minded partisanship, still are putting forward a set of ideas, fitfully, but putting forward a set of ideas. But right now the Republican Party, the allegedly conservative party, has built itself, remade itself i into a

almost a cult of personality around a a maximum leader. Uh so you're not getting conservative ideas. We are publishing and and you know this obviously, we publish conservative. all the time. But we don't right now have what I would consider a normal, healthy situation in America, and uh I wish that we did and I wish that we did for any number of reasons, including the fact that then people would not often think of the Atlantic as they sometimes do or often do now as part of an anti Trump

Resistance. We are definitely not part of an anti Trump resistance. We are simply publishing pieces that are based on empirical truth, observable truth about the conduct of government and the composition and ideology to the extent that there is an ideology that's separate from Donald Trump, the ideology of the Republican Party. Um our colleague

Adam Sirwer, who comes from a different political tradition obviously than than you do, said it best I saw this uh in a social media exchange years ago. Somebody was criticizing the Atlantic. on social media by saying, I can't believe that the Liberal Atlantic would publish

X, I don't remember what it was. It could very well have been a piece by you, for all I know. And Adam responded by saying The Atlantic is not a liberal magazine. The Atlantic's not a conservative magazine. The Atlantic is a magazine. And I thought that's one of the best encapsulations of what we're trying to do. Again, everybody lives in this weird anomalous situation, uh, where you have an

anti democratic formation right now as one of the two main parties. So what we're opposed to is not conservatism. What we are opposed to, and this goes back all the way to the roots of the abolitionist founding of the Atlantic, is that we're opposed to illiberalism. We're opposed to populist demagoguery demagoguery, uh we're opposed to authoritarian tendencies and we're opposed to people who willfully traffic in untruth and lies.

And it the words seem to be dormant. Lincoln often quoted the words again and again to remind people of their revolutionary implication. And on this two hundred and fiftieth anniversary that is being celebrated, not as the hundredth was with a great show of American technology and industry and a achievement in Philadelphia in eighteen seventy six, not

and d two hundredth anniversary with that great show of visual beauty, the great ships, these magnificent s acres of canvas spreading up and down the east coast. This one was has been commemorated by a gladiatorial contest on the White House grounds and by an im uh apparently coming up a a long speech by the president of the of the day, uh um a rally for his party. How do we reconnect to how explosive those words were, are, and continue to be?

So I was wondering, I was thinking back to why the mood, as I recall it and uh as a kid, but why the mood as as stories describe it, was relatively light in nineteen seventy six. That's because we've been past we got through the crisis and Gerald Ford restored some order and dignity and sanity and transparency to the presidency. So we were we were on the upswing of the

We're not in an upswing right now. Obviously. We're in a kind of um I wanna speak advisedly because we're both wearing ties and I feel like this is a very serious show. But the

And um it's creating a bad feeling and one of the One of the things I wish liberals or Democrats wouldn't do is cede the language and visuals of patriotism to to to the right. I wish that they would

You know, not exactly. Uh I mean precisely because eighteen fifty seven was eighteen fifty seven, was there a need and a and an impetus to to to build a magazine like the Atlantic? But you know, w we've we've this organization, this institution has seen much worse times. So so there is that, but put that aside. I I wish that people on the one hand

The reality, the current reality, is dispiriting for any number of reasons. On the other other hand, the words of the founders are perfect or as perfect as any human being could get words and goals and ideals. And we have uh been for two hundred fifty years a remarkable and indispensable country, again, one that's made mistakes all along the way. But if you think about it, just in the last century we defeated fascism and communism. That's not bad.

It's pretty good record. We've built the most powerful economy, the greatest scientific institutions, the most powerful military. We expanded from sea to shining sea, and our people live relatively speaking, well compared to people in other countries in lives of comfort and and relative wealth. It's been a successful uh experiment. overall. And I believe that America has been a force for good in the world, not least of which American ideas have been a force for good in the world.

We have a way of messing with good things and right now we're in one of those periods. But I I didn't mean to start going off on a um on a tangent here, but I was thinking I mean, I'm personally m my wife and I are planning on we're gonna be in Pearl Harbor on July fourth. at the USS Arizona Memorial. I mean, we'll go out for sushi later, but like we're that that's where we're you know, we're gonna be there and there's A real

makes it feel very real, the sacrifice that Americans have made to stand up to evil forces, forces of illiberalism, authoritarian forces. Uh and it would be great if we could put meaning back into that on July fourth. I I I just wish that people would practice gratitude in their lives when it comes to the country that they live in. And even if they didn't have gratitude, I wish that they would work harder to keep this experiment going because it's in their own self interest.

Even before Watergate burst, the period of the nineteen seventy was a period of tremendous reform in the United States. Um and not all of the reforms turned out to be successful. Um many of the campaign finance reforms they are quite backfired. But beginning

In about nineteen seventy and going through about nineteen seventy eight, there were a series of dramatic events changed the way America had always been run. The the first of them was maybe the most dramatic, it doesn't it tends to sound like a joke now, but in nineteen seventy um Congress depoliticized the post office.

And that that sounds funny, but from the beginning of the republic to 1970, postmasterships were used as political chits, political rewards. That was the currency of politics. And in 1970, Congress said, that's it, no more. It's going to be professional response.

I mean I am extolling democracy and extolling the American experiment, but the experiment is actually not working. If this was a laboratory, we're completely misfiring, among other reasons because one of the three branches of government has ceased to function. Yeah.

And so many of these reforms tried to create bodies that were halfway between Congress and the Executive, the Federal Election Commission and others, that answered simultaneously both to Congress and the Executive and were ways without a con a crisis.

To say, well, there's a dispute about whether this election practice is fair or not. We'll have uh a federal election commission made up of um people appointed by Congress and the president, and they will sort things out before it rises to the level of crisis.

And one of the things that has been going on in American life since the seventies is the Supreme Court has has said with increasing firmness, you cannot do that. Everything is the executive or the Congress, but never both, always either, never both.

Um they're th we're breaking down one by one these mediating institutions between them and we're heading to some big Supreme Court decisions that may completely gut the idea that there can except for the Federal Reserve, that there can be any of these mingled institutions.

And so you get these it it creates a crisis. Like that's what this reflecting pool thing, there's a deep the deeper story there. It's it's silly, it's dumb, it's uh but what's also true is the Constitution says Congress has responsibility for all the physical, the real real estate holdings of the United States government.

And the president has been tampering with them by cur and by courtesy he's sort of allowed to have some leeway. From the end, Congress can say, you know what, hands off the reflecting pool, hands off the White House. Actually the president's authority over the White House is a matter of courtesy by Congress because Congress actually is in control uh constitutionally of the White House complex.

And he's why? And and the answer and you know, my answer is'cause it's the Oval Office. It's the Oval Office. It's it's and he thinks it's boring. He thinks the Oval Office is boring. And I think the room The room the room from which FDR won World War two not a boring place. There's a lot of

fascinating insight into his character, into his into his under understanding of self. He as we're going back and forth about changing the Oval Office, and r you know, when the last time I was in there it's already incredibly tacky and gold fixtures everywhere and you know, you just you can imagine, right? Y you know, he said, Well you don't understand. I have important people coming.

both the the the theory of the arch bothers me so much. There's a conversation going on between Arlington National Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial. The arch is going to stand there triumphant about tri I don't know what it's triumphant about. I'm And interrupt the conversation between a martyr, President Lincoln, and all of the martyrs. of the Civil War, who are buried on Robert E. Lee's plantation and they're in a they're in a dialogue, a democratic they're

What what are we supposed to do here? Well let's read um Madison and Jefferson and and and all the rest and figure out what we're supposed to do here. And then go do it. Why would you give up? Power. I mean, we know the answer. A lot of people are there now uh prepping for the time when they can get podcasts.

that he's he's never been as consistent in his consolidation of power as a more directed person could be. Um so he's wasted a lot of time that he will not get back and and and his political standing is now suddenly deteriorating to the point where Congress is maybe losing some of its fear and there may be a different Congress after November. But this is when when the system goes wrong.

In the three hundreds. Whenever whenever that time comes, this is how it will be done. And un people of twent two of nineteen seventy six had a vision of how the system could save itself and redeem itself. We've had a vision of Doom. This is what the Doom will look like. Right.

We have a president now who's fundamentally different than every other president we can think of. Maybe Andrew Jackson's is the is the exception to that. But um There's something I have not been able to articulate this well to myself or anyone else. There is something about the largeness of the Trump project.

Like we can't we can't see it because it's too big in front of us. I'm not just making the point that if you're gonna do corruption, do a lot of corruption all at once so people are overwhelmed. cognitively in the system's become overwhelmed. I mean, we could sit here for an hour and name all of the things, all of the anti democratic moves that he's made over the last just two years, forget the first term, uh last year and a half.

Each one would have been a Watergate size scandal at any other presidency. So again, I have this hard time articulating One of the problems of human beings is also one of the great gifts of human beings. We can get used to anything. So we we go about our business as if it's normal for the president to fire the FBI director. You know what I mean? And multiply firing the FBI director by a thousand.

'Cause that's the number of things, you know, that that that have that have taken place that are absolutely without a precedent precedent in modern life.

You know, this is a kind of a dopey thing, but the the White House is made of Ionic columns which symbolize which are civilian and symbolize learning and culture. And Trump wants to replace them with Corinthian columns which symbolize symbolize like Luxury and and tyranny because that the Corinthian is above all the remote.

in a democracy, if it's not become if it's no longer a party of ideas but a party of personality. That means that we have to support the other party. I think we're doing a pretty good job of covering that other party and its flaws. We have to do a better job even than we're doing now. Partisanship is one thing. We are of no party or clique. That has to be true. We are also on the side of

The American ideas you articulated at the beginning, the Parker idea. Um the American idea is embedded in the Declaration of Independence and the American idea is articulated through the Federalist Papers to the Constitution, obviously. We have to keep

doing that as best as we can. We have to use the mechanisms of journalism to do that, reporting and fact checked true things in this age when f the facts themselves are under assault or under uh under discussion as if there's alternatives to to sets of observable facts.

I think we also have to keep our balance and try to keep our balance and not you know, n not everything is a five alarm fire. That's important. Are you asking me as a as a s as a citizen or as the editor of the Atlantic? What does the Atlantic do?

you know, that's what we don't have on social media. Any whack job with a with a with a phone can distort reality and that's not helpful. I mean you remember the famous, you know notion Madison worried that democracy would not survive the rise of the daily newspaper because a once a day insertion of new information and argument into the brains of the citizens would be too much.

for democracy to to bear. People couldn't process. Um people couldn't cool down from the emotions that were generated, uh, in time for the next tranche of information. So we have to do what we do, but even more so, which is try to be reasonable and reasoned, try to apply logic, try to be fair, try not to straw man, people on opposing sides of arguments. We also have to be very, very clear and even bold in

calling out plainly what we see. Um, it's not just the Atlantic. We all have to try to buttress free journalism, uh, independent journalism. We all have to try to as a citizen, you know, I would just like to see people vote for

a better quality congressman and senator, people who actually want to fulfill their responsibilities. I I don't know. I mean it's an endless it's an endless question. All we can do is tend to the tend to our little garden and keep our principles intact even while other people's principles are disintegrating under pressure or under the temptation of a quick buck or power, the blandishments of power and and so on. Um better angels.

I mean it's the not a cliche, it's a beautiful term, but you know, we've gotta find a way back to the better angels, and the better angels uh all involve a level of self restraint and compromise and the idea This is the hardest idea for some people to embrace that no American is my enemy. A very, very important principle. No American is my enemy. Could be adversaries politically, don't have to like everybody. But the idea of turning each other into enemies is gonna be the death of us.

As I mentioned at the top of the program, my book selection this week also has a patriotic theme. The book is City on a Hill, a History of American Exceptionalism by Abram von Engen, published by Yale University Press in the year 2020. A Shining City on a Hill.

Many people have loved the phrase, but no one loved it more than Ronald Reagan, who used it over and over again in his campaign speeches and his presidential speeches, and most notably in his farewell address in nineteen eighty nine. Here's Reagan in nineteen eighty nine, I'm quoting him. I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it.

In my mind, it was a tall, proud city, built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds, living in harmony and peace. A city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors, and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it and see it still.

Bragen usually clarified that he had not originated the phrase city on a hill, but that he had derived it from a seventeenth century sermon. Van Engen's book tells the fascinating story of the phrase's origin, its evolution, and its rediscovery by politicians including Reagan in the twentieth century. Van Engen's story starts in the year sixteen thirty. A group of would be settlers is about to depart England for Massachusetts Bay.

There they will found the city of Boston. Before they embark on their ship to Boston, their leader preaches to them about the new society they hope to build. It will be a society built on the principles of Christian charity, mutual care, but also mutual surveillance. The mutual surveillance will enforce a stricter and pure version of their Christian faith. That leader, John Winthrop, would become the first governor of the new colony.

As Van Engen notes, those words of John Winthrop's about a city on a hill did not spark excitement at the time. Or indeed, any time soon after. For two hundred years, from sixteen thirty to the eighteen thirties, nobody is recorded to have ever cited or even mentioned John Winthrop's now famous sermon.

The sermon was published in eighteen thirty eight and then immediately forgotten about for another hundred years. Only in nineteen thirty did the city of Boston rediscover the phrase and carve it on a monument to mark the three hundredth anniversary of the city's founding. But that

Little Florio Excitement still did not mark any sudden change in American culture. It was only after the Second World War that the phrase emerges into very common use, and then thanks to the efforts of a Harvard professor named Perry Miller. Miller published was the preeminent historian after World War II of Puritan New England, and he cited Winthrop's phrase from his own researches as the perfect example of the Puritan spirit and how it contributed to the creation of the new America.

Perry Miller's phrase was taken up by President John F. Kennedy, who used it, and then it began to circulate what more and more widely until Reagan made it his own in the nineteen seventies and after. Reagan made it his own in another way, which is he subtly altered the phrase. It was Reagan who inserted the phrase or the word shining before the phrase city on the hill. Shining city on the hill. That's not what Winthrop said, and that's not how John F. Kennedy used it.

It's often pointed out that the sight sitting on a hill phrase reference a passage in the New Testament. Verses fourteen and fifteen of the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus there says, and I'm going to quote here the King James Version of Jesus' words, ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it giveth and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.

Now, in the fifteen hundreds and sixteen hundreds, that phrase was often used by Catholics in their polemical war against Protestants. The Catholic argument was Jesus said the church was a light on the hill. Everybody would see it. Where had the Protestants been for the past fifteen hundred years? Nobody saw them. Everyone saw the Catholic Church. The true church of Christ was visible. The Catholic Church was visible.

The Protestant Church had been non existent and was now a minority faith, it was not hit city on a hill, and it was not the true church described by Jesus in Matthew. Winthrop's move in the sermon was to counter this Catholic claim. Not to brag about the imminent founding of a great new nation that would be a light unto the world, but to r explain from a Protestant point of view why the Catholic claim that the true church would be visible was not true.

Winthrop's point was that the true church was anywhere where Christians congregated together. That's where the city on the hill was. That's where it was a light to the world. And it could be found anywhere, literally anywhere, even so obscure and remote a place as the northwest corner of the Atlantic Ocean, in this tiny little city of Boston.

Winthrop and his followers had no idea, they could not have imagined that the city they were founding was about to become would become one of the first settlements in the mightiest economic and military power in the history of the world. That idea would have seemed to them facially crazy if anyone had even dared to articulate such a bizarre thing.

But as the United States did become such a nation, the phrase acquired a retrospective new meaning. That here is this new society, a new kind of society that all the world would see. The City on a Hill language that Perry Miller discovered and that John F. Kennedy adapted was brilliantly suited to the rhetorical needs of Cold War America.

That nation regarded itself as both the center of events and as a society profoundly vulnerable to external shocks. The eyes of all people will be upon us, and those eyes could condemn as well as approve. The city on a hill could fail.

Ronald Reagan seems not to have appreciated his debt to Perry Miller, which was only fair because Miller, who died before Ronald Reagan became famous in politics, Miller was a pretty fierce liberal partisan who would have had little use for the Reagan of the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties.

W Reagan's brightening of Winthrop's phrase with the addition of that word shining subtly changed the meaning of what Winthrop said and what John F. Kennedy said and what other Cold War people who used the phrase had said. Reagan's creative misquotation was Added a kind of certainty. The destiny of the city on the hill before all eyes, that was uncertain, but the shining city, that city was already shining. Its destiny had been achieved. Its hopes had been fulfilled. The dream had been realized.

And now the task shifted from creation to preservation, or possibly restoration, to scrub off any grime that dimmed the shine. Right now, on this two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, the Shining City on a hill seems a little grimy. But the summons that Reagan spoke in nineteen eighty nine, that John Winthrop created in sixteen thirty, borrowing from the New Testament, the summons to build a shining city, that's that still speaks to all of us, and still summons all of us.

So, on this 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, may the city once again shine for all, for Americans and all the world. Thanks so much for joining me today on the David From Show. As ever, the best way to support the work of this program and of all of us at the Atlantic is by subscribing to the Atlantic. It would be helpful if you were minded that if you would share and and like subscribe to this work on whatever platform you use.

Thanks so much for watching and listening to you.