Political amateurs
Gordon Wood, professor of history, has a great piece in NYT that debunks a strangely attractive populist myth: that it’s somehow “career politicians” that cause the country’s problems, and if they were all replaced with socially popular salt-of-the-earth types (farmer, small business owner, fireman) the country would be better off. Wood demonstrates that, contrary to the popular fantasy, America’s founders were incredibly experienced statesmen.
His most interesting conclusion is that it was this experience that led to the success of the American Revolution compared to the decades of violance and strife that characterized the French Revolution.
-John
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