{"id":745540,"date":"2026-07-06T00:58:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T00:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/745540\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T00:58:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T00:58:12","slug":"ken-burns-insists-founding-fathers-would-be-disappointed-250-years-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/745540\/","title":{"rendered":"Ken Burns Insists Founding Fathers Would Be ‘Disappointed’ 250 Years Later"},"content":{"rendered":"

The drafters of the U.S. Constitution \u201cwould be abjectly disappointed\u201d by the state of the United States in 2026, Ken Burns told \u201cMeet the Press\u201d host Kristen Welker on Sunday \u2014 especially since the legislative branch has effectively \u201cabdicated so much of the power.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201cAmerican Revolution\u201d documentarian and Welker discussed the fragility of democracy in honor of the 4th of July. \u201cIt\u2019s really true, and I\u2019ve found that in film after film after film. You know, we made a film a few years ago called \u2018The U.S. and the Holocaust,\u2019\u201d Burns said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you wanted to be in the most cosmopolitan place on Earth, where everything \u2014 architecture and cinema and painting and music and thinking \u2014 was going on, Berlin in 1932 would be the best place,\u201d he continued. \u201cThe next January, not so much. And so you see how quickly the veneer of civilization can be pierced. And the founders understood that. They were really trying to reverse-engineer all sorts of things.\u201d<\/p>\n

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One of their tactics 250 years ago was to make the executive branch Article II of the Constitution.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe executive\u2019s the manager who carries out the wishes of the Congress. So I think if the founders came here, they would not be surprised at all that somebody was seeking more authoritarian power,\u201d Burns explained. \u201cThey would be abjectly disappointed that Article I, the legislative branch, had abdicated so much of the power, because that\u2019s what they thought would be the bulwark against the inevitable thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

People were \u201csubjects\u201d before they became citizens, he further noted. \u201cJefferson said all \u2013 in [the Declaration of Independence], \u2018All experience has shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable.\u2019 Meaning all of human history, we\u2019ve put up with the authoritarian rule. It doesn\u2019t work. It doesn\u2019t provide for human happiness. And here\u2019s our idea of how to put this forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Welker also asked how Burns thinks the founding fathers would feel about the country today: \u201cThey\u2019d be totally impressed in lots of ways. They\u2019d be stunned maybe, and shocked at how much rights have been extended to people, and glad about it. I mean, George Washington knew slavery was wrong. Thomas Jefferson knew slavery was wrong. And the scholar Annette Gordon-Reed said, \u2018How could you continue with something if you knew it was wrong?\u2019 And she said, \u2018Instead of throwing Jefferson out,\u2019 \u2014 she\u2019s an African American scholar \u2014 she says, \u2018Well, that\u2019s the human question for the rest of us. Do we act on flaws of our own? Yes, we do.\u2019 And so it\u2019s a generous idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they\u2019d be incredibly impressed at what we\u2019ve been able to achieve and see the levels of division that would seem familiar to them and be disappointed in us that we hadn\u2019t figured out what the larger thing was,\u201d Burns said. \u201cThere are people \u2014 we\u2019re not in a happy state right now. We have a lot of people who are keeping us alive to our grievances. It is in the interests of authoritarians to keep people uneducated, distracted by conspiracy and superstition. And our founding, that pursuit of happiness, was not pursued of material goods in a marketplace of things but lifelong learning in a marketplace of ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Welker\u2019s show also included interviews with presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and Lonnie Bunch, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, who each emphasized the spirit of hope.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re living in a tough time right now, but history can give us perspective, it can gives us solace. I really think it can give us hope. Just imagine what it was like to live through the Civil War; more than 600,000 people were dead. Or live through the Great Depression; one out of four people out of work, the banking system collapsed; or to live through the early days of World War II, when it was unclear that Hitler might conquer the rest of the world,\u201d Goodwin said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe important thing to know is that in each one of those times, the people who lived then, they didn\u2019t know the end of their story. They were like us. They were anxious. They were fearful. They didn\u2019t know that the Union would be restored and emancipation would be secured,\u201d she added. \u201cThey didn\u2019t know that the Great Depression would come to end with demobilization for the war. They didn\u2019t know the Allies would win World War II. So they lived with the same worries that we are, but somehow we showed strength, and we emerged with greatest strength from each one of those troubles. So remembering the troubled times right now, and how we came out of them, that\u2019s the progress that we\u2019ve made as a country.\u201d<\/p>\n

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