Discussion about this post

User's avatar
MICHAEL L BURWELL's avatar

Heather, I've been reading your synopses for months now, as well as viewing your video chats. I have just now become a subscriber to your "Letters from an American." It's about time I did so. Why? First, I now feel that I am part of a very special community, and being in community is very important to me. Second, I truly appreciate your hard work in pursuit of getting the truth out about contemporary political events against the backdrop of American history. You are clearly a person of great integrity and are performing such a valuable service to me and many others whose understanding of the political underpinnings of American history needs boosting. I was raised in a small farming community in Western Minnesota (famous only as the home town of the renowned poet, translator, and social critic Robert Bly, who was also a Harvard alum). Growing up in relative isolation from national events, much less world events, I received (like many others) a very inadequate education regarding the history of our country. Thankfully, my horizons were broadened significantly by my higher education at the University of Minnesota, Union Theological Seminary in NYC, Penn State, Indiana University, a German university, and considerable travel throughout the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Nevertheless, it is YOU I want to thank for providing me, on an ongoing basis, with a deeper understanding of our nation's great achievements and its oft-hidden flaws. I am truly grateful for your insights. I wish you good energy as you persevere in sharing your perspectives and your vision for a renewal of our democracy as one that is "of the people, by the people, for the people."

Expand full comment
Jon Margolis's avatar

Beautiful, succinct and frightening. I have been a lawyer for more than 50 years, and involved in politics for longer than that, but I did not fully realize how close we came to the precipice last year. As a certain former president would say, “Lock them up!” And as another former president would say, these events present us with the question of whether any nation so conceived and so dedicated as the United States can long endure.

Expand full comment
620 more comments...

No posts