Charles Cooke of the National Review, Melody Barnes of the University of Virginia, and Sean Wilentz of Princeton University explore the debate about the core values of the American Idea—liberty, equality, democracy, and federalism—throughout American history and model the way in which Americans of different perspectives can come together in the spirit of civil dialogue. This program was recorded live on February 9, 2024.
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Today’s episode was produced by Lana Ulrich, Samson Mostashari, and Bill Pollock. It was engineered by Advantage Staging Productions and Bill Pollock. Research was provided by Samson Mostashari, Cooper Smith, and Yara Daraiseh.
Participants
Melody Barnes is the executive director of UVA’s Karsh Institute of Democracy and J. Wilson Newman Professor of Governance at the Miller Center of Public Affairs. She is also a senior fellow at UVA Law’s Karsh Center for Law and Democracy. She is chair of the board of trustees of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, the private, nonprofit organization that owns and operates Monticello. During the administration of President Barack Obama, Barnes was assistant to the president and director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. She was also executive vice president for policy at the Center for American Progress and chief counsel to the late U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy ’59 on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Charles Cooke is a senior editor at National Review and the former editor of National Review Online. He is a graduate of the University of Oxford, at which he studied modern history and politics. His work has focused especially on Anglo-American history, British liberty, free speech, the Second Amendment, and American exceptionalism. He is the co-host of the Mad Dogs and Englishmen podcast, and is a regular guest on HBO's (Real Time with Bill Maher). He has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times.
Sean Wilentz is the George Henry Davis 1886 Professor of American History at Princeton University. His books include The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (2005), which was awarded the Bancroft Prize and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and No Property in Man: Slavery and Antislavery at the Nation’s Founding (2024)
Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center. Rosen is also a professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic. His most recent book is The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America.
Additional Resources:
- Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (2008)
- Sean Wilentz, The Politicians and the Egalitarians: The Hidden History of American Politics (2016)
- Charles Cooke, The Conservatarian Manifesto: Libertarians, Conservatives, and the Fight for the Right’s Future
- Charles Cooke, "The American System Works, and It Will Work If Trump Wins Again" (2023)
- Melody Barnes, Corey D.B. Walker and Thad M. Williamson,“Introduction: can we make American democracy work?” In Community Wealth Building and the Reconstruction of American Democracy (2020)
- Melody Barnes (and others), “Hate-fueled violence is ripping apart our cities and nation. We need to stop it.,” USA Today (2022)
- Melody Barnes and Caroline Janney, "Opinion: In a civil war, accountability must precede healing,"The Washington Post (2021)
- Melody Barnes, "Opinion: It's time for Sally Hemings to show us the unvarnished Thomas Jefferson," The Washington Post (2018)
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