On his book Democracy's Muse: How Thomas Jefferson Became an FDR Liberal, a Reagan Republican, and a Tea Party Fanatic, All the While Being Dead
Cover Interview of April 11, 2017
In a nutshell
Democracy’s Muse examines why it is that Thomas
Jefferson has come to represent American ideals for all modern generations, why
the most emotive figure of the founding era appeals to the political Left as
well as the Right. He was the first, but by no means the last, to designate his
nation as “the world’s best hope,” and that’s part of it. But his malleability
says more. It says that the historical Jefferson is manipulated with too little
regard for context. How can he be a big-government New Dealer and a
small-government Reaganite?
Jefferson’s political sentiments have reverberated across
time and space in enchanting ways. Mikhail Gorbachev said that he frequently
turned to Jefferson when he was fashioning reform of the Soviet system. Barack
Obama, while better known for his embrace of Abraham Lincoln, met the visiting
French president at Jefferson’s Monticello home, in Charlottesville, Virginia,
in recognition of Jefferson’s embrace of French culture. Donald Trump, on the
campaign trail, offhandedly stated that he could foresee a monument in
Washington celebrating his achievements––“but maybe I’d share it with
Jefferson.” Everyone, it seems, wants a piece of Jefferson.
It’s hard to say which of the two transformative presidents
adored Jefferson more: Franklin Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan. Both channeled the
third president in their conception of government’s role in the lives of
citizens. Given this curious conundrum, my book charts the strong statements of
presidents, congressmen, and public intellectuals, from FDR’s time to Obama’s. Our
self-anointed monitors of historical continuity have all struggled to define
what the “Jeffersonian ideal” means to modern America’s national self-image. Sometimes
they argue by resort to colorful language, and at other times they sound
downright desperate.
FDR helped to design the Thomas Jefferson Memorial that proudly
stands over at the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C. He opened it to the public
on the founder’s 200th birthday, April 13, 1943. At the time of Jefferson’s
250th, in 1992, President William Jefferson Clinton recalled that day, fifty
years earlier, attesting to FDR’s Jeffersonian credentials, while adding his
own thoughts on the illustrious Virginian. Thomas Jefferson believed, Clinton
said, “in government being constantly reformed by reason and popular will.” The
Economist wasn’t so convinced that the historical Jefferson had a
reliable connection to ordinary people, and questioned assumptions about
Jefferson universality: “He is the intellectual’s president, the president of
the uncalloused hands.” In 2004, Time magazine actually queried whether
President Jefferson would have invaded Iraq.
Jefferson also remains a flashpoint in national
conversations about the inherently secular or religious character of the
American republic. And then there’s his sexual activity across racial lines. We
care about the ways Jefferson is portrayed––so much so that politicians have
been known to put their own words in his mouth and repeat invented Jefferson
quotes that support whatever agenda they are pursuing. Democracy’s Muse
is as concerned with popular culture as with the pathos and pathology of the
present partisan environment; the book weighs in on what we can and cannot know
about the historical Jefferson, and why that question matters.
[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.Carolyn J. Dean, Interview of February 01, 2011
The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.Jerome Kagan, Interview of September 17, 2009
In a nutshell
Democracy’s Muse examines why it is that Thomas Jefferson has come to represent American ideals for all modern generations, why the most emotive figure of the founding era appeals to the political Left as well as the Right. He was the first, but by no means the last, to designate his nation as “the world’s best hope,” and that’s part of it. But his malleability says more. It says that the historical Jefferson is manipulated with too little regard for context. How can he be a big-government New Dealer and a small-government Reaganite?
Jefferson’s political sentiments have reverberated across time and space in enchanting ways. Mikhail Gorbachev said that he frequently turned to Jefferson when he was fashioning reform of the Soviet system. Barack Obama, while better known for his embrace of Abraham Lincoln, met the visiting French president at Jefferson’s Monticello home, in Charlottesville, Virginia, in recognition of Jefferson’s embrace of French culture. Donald Trump, on the campaign trail, offhandedly stated that he could foresee a monument in Washington celebrating his achievements––“but maybe I’d share it with Jefferson.” Everyone, it seems, wants a piece of Jefferson.
It’s hard to say which of the two transformative presidents adored Jefferson more: Franklin Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan. Both channeled the third president in their conception of government’s role in the lives of citizens. Given this curious conundrum, my book charts the strong statements of presidents, congressmen, and public intellectuals, from FDR’s time to Obama’s. Our self-anointed monitors of historical continuity have all struggled to define what the “Jeffersonian ideal” means to modern America’s national self-image. Sometimes they argue by resort to colorful language, and at other times they sound downright desperate.
FDR helped to design the Thomas Jefferson Memorial that proudly stands over at the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C. He opened it to the public on the founder’s 200th birthday, April 13, 1943. At the time of Jefferson’s 250th, in 1992, President William Jefferson Clinton recalled that day, fifty years earlier, attesting to FDR’s Jeffersonian credentials, while adding his own thoughts on the illustrious Virginian. Thomas Jefferson believed, Clinton said, “in government being constantly reformed by reason and popular will.” The Economist wasn’t so convinced that the historical Jefferson had a reliable connection to ordinary people, and questioned assumptions about Jefferson universality: “He is the intellectual’s president, the president of the uncalloused hands.” In 2004, Time magazine actually queried whether President Jefferson would have invaded Iraq.
Jefferson also remains a flashpoint in national conversations about the inherently secular or religious character of the American republic. And then there’s his sexual activity across racial lines. We care about the ways Jefferson is portrayed––so much so that politicians have been known to put their own words in his mouth and repeat invented Jefferson quotes that support whatever agenda they are pursuing. Democracy’s Muse is as concerned with popular culture as with the pathos and pathology of the present partisan environment; the book weighs in on what we can and cannot know about the historical Jefferson, and why that question matters.