Last month I gave the main commencement speech at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where 250 years ago our founders signed the Declaration of Independence. They were a jubilant and friendly crowd, with one exception I was later told about: when I praised our country’s rule of law a man sprang furiously to his feet, thrust a middle finger at me and stormed out of the arena.
Such is America in 2026. We are enveloped by anger, polarisation and fear. Before we get too hyperbolic about our current national predicament, it is worth noting that America has endured grave crises before. But what has repeatedly sustained it is adherence—however imperfect—to certain shared founding principles.
De redactie van NRC selecteert de beste artikelen uit The Economist voor een breder perspectief op internationale politiek en economie.
During his inaugural address in 1933, at the nadir of the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt said of the nation’s troubles: „They concern, thank God, only material things.” It is painful to note that, in contrast, today’s society suffers not only from inequality in „material things” but from declining faith in some of the most basic tenets that the founders exalted in their debates over the constitution. For much of America’s history, its citizens accepted these so widely that they were almost boilerplate. But some of the earliest, most sacred ideas are almost radioactive in America now.
