Joseph Ellis - American Dialogue - The Founders and Us - Notes

Joseph Ellis is my favorite American historian.

In the context of the Negro problem neither whites nor blacks, for reasons of their own, have the faintest desire to look back; but I think the past is all that makes the present coherent, and further the past will remain horrible for exactly so long as we refuse to assess it honestly. . . . Appearances to the contrary, no one in America escapes its effects and everyone in America bears some responsibility for it.

-James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son, 1955

Which is why I am proud to be a student of American history in this time of politicizing our history by trying to distort and erase the truth. P. 49 

Adams was a realist.  Jefferson was a dreamer/hypocrite.

The dedication of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in 2014 gave iconic status on the Mall to the liberal narrative of American history as an ongoing conversation within the trinity of Jefferson, Lincoln, and King about what "all men are created equal" means then and now.  P. 57

Hence, Professor Richardson's current book is a case in point. 

This country was not founded on the Declaration of Independence.  Ellis points out that it was nothing more than rhetorical flourish.  Jefferson did not personally believe what it ultimately came to stand for and mean.  Jefferson was a total racist and hypocrite.  

Adams points out that the deepest human drive is the irrational need to be noticed and loved.  Why does he consider this need irrational?  P. 94

The new aristocracy would be based on money,  not family inheritance.  P. 94

The U.S. doesn't have the European  old-style to offset wealth as the primary measure of elite status.   I can only imagine how disgusted and disappointed he would be with Trump.  P. 95

He foresaw the country was headed toward a "moneyed aristocracy." P. 95

This new money aristocracy would be pathetic for the not have the emotional attachment of European elites, yet Trumpers love their messiah yet it's a one-way affection.p. 95

His work Davila  highlights his comments on these matters.

Mocked as "His Rotundity.  P. 96

The US was not immune to what happened in Europe throughout as the development oc embedded plutocracy: a political oligarchy.    P. 96

Adams was a student of history to see where this country was headed, and he was right to do so.