John Avlon Quotes

Godwin's law states that the longer any online debate goes on, the likelier it is that someone will play the Nazi card. It's the rhetorical equivalent of going nuclear and stupid at the same time.

While freedom can be a state of nature, liberty requires a degree of self-discipline. It is the essence of self-governance.

Washington’s Farewell Address was not read aloud before an audience. Instead of delivering the news like a European king, he delivered it directly to the American people through one of the 100 newspapers in the nation. He

But the demagogues and regional divisions that troubled Washington still afflicted the nation with 'ill-founded jealousies and false alarms,' spreading the flames of faction under the cover of pretend patriotism, fueled by a fundamental misreading of the Constitution.

Fourth and finally, Washington made a passionate case for cultivating an identity as American citizens that would elevate national unity over local loyalties, inducing “them to forget their local prejudices and policies, to make those mutual concessions which are requisite to the general prosperity, and in some instances, to sacrifice their individual advantages to the interest of the community.

But the greatest danger could spring from the chaos of a dysfunctional democracy, compounded by relentless party warfare, which, Washington warned, would erode faith in the effectiveness of self-governance and open the door to a demagogue with authoritarian ambitions. 'The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

Madison’s response is famously expressed in Federalist 10, “The Utility of the Union as a Safeguard against Domestic Faction and Insurrection”—arguing that tyranny of the majority was most likely to occur in small republics. When a republic holds a critical mass of diverse interests, no single group is likely to hold the upper hand for long. The combination of diversity and size serves as a cooling mechanism on more heated local passions and prejudices. In a large republic, the necessity of cobbling together broad governing coalitions means that narrow self-interest is forced to give way to a more enlightened self-interest, in the recognition that pursuing the common good can bring about mutual benefits.I

As Sherman left City Point that afternoon on the Bat to speed his way back to his men in North Carolina, Lincoln walked with him to the gangplank, leaving the general with the lasting impression that “of all the men I ever met, he seemed to possess more of the elements of greatness, combined with goodness, than any other.”18

America is both North and South, White and Black, Republican and Democrat. We are laughter and loss, Saturday night and Sunday morning, Old Testament and New. Liberty and equality are not opposites in inevitable conflict, but act in concert under the practical balance of the Union. In the end, even war and peace are intimately entwined.

The heirs of Jefferson and Madison would be the Democratic-Republicans, the heirs of Hamilton and Adams would be the Federalists. But the heirs of Washington would be all Americans.