Tag Archives: Civic Responsibility

It’s Time to Make Civics Great Again

BY Louise Dube’ and Shawn Healy, Ripon Society Forum  |  APR 19, 2025 

The Founders would be appropriately bewildered by many facets of modern life in year 250 of the American experiment, but they’d probably be downright shocked by how far we have let our approach to educating young people stray from their original vision.

They believed unequivocally that the point of education in America should be to impart knowledge to young people that would help them be responsible citizens, contributing members of their communities, and ultimately, defenders of constitutional democracy. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison extolled civic learning as a bulwark against tyranny. And President George Washington, in his final Annual Address to Congress in 1796, said that the “education of our Youth in the science of Government” would prepare them to be “future guardians of the liberties of the Country.” Continue reading →

Trump vs Congress Showdown

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON  |  FEB 3, 2025 (Updated 2/19/25)

“The Founders knew they were creating something different and, hopefully lasting. They were visionary. No constitutional democratic republic has survived as long as ours. Maybe our longevity is to the credit of (John) Adams and other Founders who were smart enough not to create a pure democracy or a monarchy, as some preferred, but a democratic republic with three branches of government, each serving as a check and balance of the other.” — Fixing Congress: Restoring Power to the People, (Chapter 15, Pg 265)

The separation of powers and the checks and balances that make our government functional are part of the genius of our Constitution and a reason for its historic longevity.

President Donald Trump’s early actions tell us he rejects the premise of checks and balances and with an unorthodox view of the separation of powers and believes he can muscle his way past them.

The alarm bells are ringing.

The checks and balances are embedded in Articles I, II, and III of the Constitution, along with separation of powers among the branches of government, each of which is distinct, function separately but answer to each other and hopefully function as one. I will try to connect my dots here with the disclaimer that I’m not an historian, nor a constitutional scholar. What I do know is that Mr. Trump’s autocratic view of the first three Articles has him speeding along an unfamiliar road without political or ideological GPS.

I’ve always found it helpful to take a step back before leaping forward, so back to history. Continue reading →