This post is about maintaining hope and positivity in an 250-year-old experiment known as the United States of America, and it is dedicated to a fairly new friend, though it feels as if I’ve known her for decades.
Eileen and I met one year ago later this month at a local Otero County function for Deb Haaland, former Biden Interior Secretary who is running for governor of New Mexico. Haaland has since clinched the Democratic nomination, and Eileen and I have also flourished in a friendship based on an astonishing discovery that we attended the same high school in Arlington, Virginia, where she graduated nineteen years before I did.
Two weeks ago during our semi-weekly chats at a local pistachio farm winery happy hour, Eileen suggested that a documentary called The American Experiment might lift my spirits and provide hope for the future of our nation, as it had hers.
As luck would have it, I had finally recently subscribed to Netflix and was able to watch the five-part documentary series, The American Experient, In Celebration of USA 250, last week. As Eileen said, this program for which Tom Hanks is the executive producer was exceedingly well done.
It provides fascinating insights—as in very relatable human details—into a few of our founders that I certainly didn’t receive through any classes on history or law. Though some of it was difficult to watch because it did not pull punches about slavery or bigotry against indigenous peoples, and the inhumane violence perpetrated therein. Most amazingly, we really only became a republic because George Washington refused to be king. As it turned out, he also didn’t actually enjoy being our first president.
First, can I just say how funny it was to realize I recognized the narrated voice of Washington as Martin Sheen specifically because I am also in the process of watching (for the first time) another excellent and entertaining drama series on Netflix in which Sheen plays the US president. The West Wing originally ran from 1999-2006, airing while I was living and working in the National Capital Region, and it makes me sad and nostalgic for the dignity, grace, and grit that can be an American presidency. Because the current White House occupant exhibits none of those things, nor does the staff of its west wing. And we all know what happened to the East Wing.
Interesting tidbits from The American Experiment included learning of the humble origins of Alexander Hamilton as an illegitimate son of a Scottish laird. As an aide to George Washington, the relationship between Hamilton and Washington was like that of father and son. And I had not known that James Madison was quite short in stature and nicknamed “Little Jimmy.”
I also kind of owe John Adams an apology for considering him a misogynist lackwit for not heeding the words of his wife Abigail to remember the ladies when it came to drafting the Constitution. Because it was delightful to learn that their courtship was filled with romantic and clever repartee via letters, and sobering to realize that even if Adams had attempted to persuade other delegates to include women in the Constitution, it was likely no one would have listened.
The delegates were all too busy excluding indigenous people from consideration and avoiding addressing human slaves held as chattel in the southern colonies, which turned out to be an issue that shouldn’t have been punted down the road, resulting in our nation’s first Civil War. As noted in this series, a compromise on slavery at the Constitutional Convention was what made the union itself possible, but ultimately unstable.
How unfortunately ironic that we’re currently in the throes of what is virtually a second civil war over racism and lack of empathy for human beings who are not white males, perhaps because we never held Confederate leaders responsible for their traitorous actions against our union. Not holding tyrants responsible for insurrection five years ago is yet another repeated injustice against we the people, and the reputation of our nation now suffers across the globe as a result.
But I’m trying to focus on the positive in this post, so I recommend all Americans watch The American Experiment—and I think it would make an excellent addition to any history class taught in any US grade school or institution of higher learning.
The final episode titled “Washington’s Warning,” was Eileen’s favorite, so I’ll address what surprised me to learn about myself while watching it. It was considered a miracle that “near unanimity” was achieved with the delegates in Philadelphia in July of 1776, because half of the people opposed ratification of the Constitution. They were known as Anti-Federalists, versus the Federalists supporting ratification, finding its ambiguous language dangerous and proffering too much power in the federal government. And I realized that I would have been among Anti-Federalists had I been there, especially regarding ambiguous language. After all, half of our Supreme Court can’t understand blatantly unambiguous language in the Bill of Rights centuries later.
I would have also stood with the states who would only ratify the Constitution if a Bill of Rights followed it. And I especially enjoyed that The American Experience explained the Ninth Amendment, the beauty of its penumbra and its proffer of a right to privacy being lost on far too many Americans: The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Basically the drafters said that just because they didn’t include it as a specifically listed right does not mean it doesn’t exist. Such as bodily autonomy, for instance. Apparently they considered some rights to be inherently obvious. Go figure.
Yet another bitter and brutal irony today, and another reason I would have been against the ambiguities in the Constitution itself. After all, a Bill of Rights was considered unnecessary by the framers because rights were thought to be implied. And when you consider that there is much less of a protection against presidential corruption than imagined when they devised the impeachment process, which really doesn’t work, as stated in Episode 4 “We the People,” which also noted how the Electoral College was defective from the beginning. That’s certainly been proven true when Democratic candidates winning the popular vote weren’t sworn in as president.
As for the handcrafted greeting card accompanying this post, made for Independence Day this year despite misgivings about celebrating, the hot air balloon was officially designated as New Mexico’s state aircraft on March 1, 2005. Inside the card, I rubberstamped a quote especially for Eileen, because she actually met and conversed with President John F. Kennedy: Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.
What all of us can do for our country is to vote Democratic because, as historian Heather Cox Richardson said recently, “The once grand Republican Party has become a party of radical extremists, coalescing around white nationalism.” One more thing the Founding Fathers didn’t foresee, the rise in power mongering within our two political-party system, including one party—and a SCOTUS rightwing majority—seeking to abolish both the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth.
Though, as The American Experience noted, hyper-partisanship was there from the very beginning. So maybe there’s still hope for the USA. Because the Constitution says nothing about the number of justices to be appointed to our highest court. And New Mexico might just elect the first Indigenous American woman to ever serve as governor in these United States. It’s about time. I’d like to think a few of the framers would have agreed, if they could see us now. My guess is John Adams’ wife Abigail would still be cheering for us ladies.