As in the 18th century the American war of independence sounded the tocsin for the European middle class, so in the 19th century the American Civil War sounded it for the European working class.
For generations, historians have downplayed the American Revolution as a squabble between elites. But the revolution unleashed egalitarian forces its architects could neither control nor contain.
By design, the Constitution is a barrier to true democracy. But the leftist writer and filmmaker Astra Taylor thinks that we shouldn’t abandon it entirely.
American federalism is often touted as a source of local democratic engagement, political innovation, and responsive public policy. But in practice, it has served as a laboratory of autocracy and inequality.
The Founders made expansion the precondition of American freedom. We must find an alternative.
