America’s Founding Fathers: Conservatives Seek Restoration of Founding Principles

‘What would the Founding Fathers think of today’s America?” author Michael Lind asks in a provocative new article for Compact. He then answers his own question: “Who cares?” He proceeds to offer a breezy and ahistorical argument that the conservative movement’s “cult of the Founders” is only a few generations old, largely the product of an attempt to provide “a nonracist definition of the American nation during the civil-rights revolution.”

Has Lind ever been to Washington, D.C.? There, one will find many large — one might say cult-like — monuments to the leaders of the Founding, the most prominent of which were built a good bit before the 1960s. There’s quite a tall one dedicated to the man who is supposed to have chopped down the cherry tree. It’s hard to miss.

About the Author

Jay Cost

Jay Cost is a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the Center for Faith and Freedom at Grove City College.

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‘What would the Founding Fathers think of today’s America?” author Michael Lind asks in a provocative new article for Compact. He then answers his own question: “Who cares?” He proceeds to offer a breezy and ahistorical argument that the conservative movement’s “cult of the Founders” is only a few generations old, largely the product of an attempt to provide “a nonracist definition of the American nation during the civil-rights revolution.”

Has Lind ever been to Washington, D.C.? There, one will find many large — one might say cult-like — monuments to the leaders of the Founding, the most prominent of which were built a good bit before the 1960s. There’s quite a tall one dedicated to the man who is supposed to have chopped down the cherry tree. It’s hard to miss.