When the SC issued their presidential immunity decision I remember telling my husband, this means we have to elect people of virtue, people with good character. If we do otherwise, we’re screwed. No one is perfect, not me, not founders, not anyone, but character is caring about and working on being more perfect tomorrow than we are today. Can we go back to character matters?
Lots to chew on here! Thanks Ed and Jeffrey. I hadn’t yet read a piece that honestly grappled with the founders’ hypocrisy while engaging with their philosophy in good faith. It makes me wonder what we can take from this to our interaction with politics today.
Several times in the last year I’ve sat down to brunch with friends who were adamantly against Trump in his first term but now find protest or action in term two as harmful to their mental health, while counterproductive to defend a country that elected him a second time. Term one could be written off as a fluke, but term two proved to them they were living in a country that wasn’t worth saving. So even my most vague mention of how things could be better is met with apprehension: “Hey, when I signed up for brunch I was thinking pancakes and mimosas, not some intrusive reminder that I have a moral duty to be the change I want to see.”
I was struck by the mention that these figures who studied Cicero included RBG and that this education was common through the mid-20th century. What changed? Is that also when we came to define the pursuit of happiness not as a call to participate in politics in good faith, but as buying bigger and more expensive toys for our kids at Christmas? More “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit” than “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”? Is this why we aren’t getting great protest songs anymore?
Can this change? Can we translate Cicero to TikTok? If the founders understood happiness as “being good” rather than “feeling good,” that implies ongoing participation in civic life, not just showing up with a ballot every four years when the stakes feel existential. Can the upcoming midterms be more than us standing still and waiting for others’ buyer’s remorse to barely eke out a housecleaning? I’d rather have a landslide cross-partisan movement toward standing for something. Can we reform our government so that we aren’t just trading jerseys, but changing the rules so that authoritarianism can’t as easily take hold again? And then we can go back to the guilt of brunch being in the calories instead of the act of pretending that everything is normal.
We’ve got less than a year until what we’ll be told is the most consequential midterm election of a lifetime. It would make me so happy, in both meanings of the word, if we could rebuild America into the great nation we already always assumed it was. But I need help. And I want to be clear: protecting your mental health isn’t selfish. But maybe the answer isn’t tuning out entirely. Maybe it can be beneficial to your mental health (relative to the nihilistic default) to pick one reform within your grasp, start locally, and coordinate with others so that combined action can see results without burning anyone out.
Anyone else put “coordinated action toward big structural change” in their new year’s resolutions? Because I need an accountability buddy. 🙂
This was very insightful. I think it confirms that without a virtuous society our democracy will fail. All of us are flawed as were the founding fathers. We all have good intentions but unless we have something bigger than ourselves to be our compass it eventually falls short in life and politics. I don’t believe they fell short because they had no virtues, (although the author didn’t say that) but because they depended on their virtue alone! They read about morality, etc., but it fell short as they didn’t hold themselves to something higher than their own standards! And sadly we are seeing this played out grievously today! I hope for a better 2026!
Thanks, Jenny! And another thought I had while reading your reply: it’s kind of ironic that we see a trend away from virtue even as we are told that modern life has never been more convenient and efficient. Like… you can load your clothes in a machine, walk away, get hours of other work done, and come back to clean clothes. That sure beats taking your clothes to the river and breaking your back to haul sopping wet clothes to a clothesline.
So why doesn’t that saved time translate into free time that can be dedicated to maintaining our democracy, when it seemed like so much more of a popular pastime before electricity changed our lives? Are we having too much fun? I doubt that’s the problem.
It seems like it’s more of an issue of framing politics as something we all ought to do, instead of a niche hobby that some masochists somehow enjoy. To be clear… I don’t enjoy this work. I want to be lazy and unplug for months and months. I just don’t see how that’s an option in today’s world. It would be nice if my friends felt the same way.
Yes I understand the frustration of friends disengaging not only from burn out, but from hearing the truth! I have to take breaks though for my sanity. I know I can’t fix everything, even when engaged. So I am trying to do what I can but also knowing it isn’t for me to produce the change alone. I have a responsibility to do something but then have to leave it and live life where I am. No matter what this administration does, I can still do good where I am and push against the brokenness!
Actually, the problem really might be having too much fun! I just read "Amusing Ourselves to Death"
Even though the book was written 40 years ago, the premise seems even more relevant. It's a quick read, or at the very least look up the summary, I think you'll find it interesting and helpful in understanding some aspects of our current predicament.
Let's be brutally honest with ourselves, folks. None of us are without faults and hangups . Thomas Jefferson was honest enough to admit that he didn't know how to live without slave help because he was helpless himself when it came to being self sufficient , would be my guess. We weren't in his skin ,so, we can't really know his fear of providing for himself. Maybe he truly was born with a silver spoon in his mouth but he did help author the Constitution and it's Preamble ,which in and of itself, was amazing. John Adams on the other hand was of the Puritan tradition in Massachusetts and was opposed to slavery and had none on his farm . He paid all of his workers wages . George Washington had slaves as did many other of the founding fathers , but the point taken is that as we strive for a virtuous life we are not completely free of the possibility of yielding to the prurient interests that reside in our subconscious minds, otherwise known as, the Id.
Excellent post. I just posted that we need to put the idea that the Founders linked happiness with virtue and not greed, although acknowledging the power of greed, front and center in conversations and political words and actions going forward.
Everyone will have to find their own level of political involvement this year and act upon it in their own way in their own spheres of influence. Not everyone is a RaRa type of cheerleader in all things political , but can still be effective as a part of the whole that will help change things for the better . These conversations on Substacks are great as they allow people the chance to participate in commenting on issues of great concern to many of us who don't like what is happening in DC right now and ,yes, this election will be sooo important to start the turnaround so badly needed in our country.
Thank you for some insights that were new to me and that shine a light on some very important ideas. One is that happiness and virtue are intertwined. In today's world, they seem far apart. Linking together has never meant perfection, as we see going back to the Founders; but they saw that it was a worthy goal and were conscious of its importance. And, clearly, greed was acknowledged as a stumbling block to virtue. I think the idea of a critical link between happiness and virtue should be front and center in many conversations going forward, given that it seems completely absent at this point!
Great article. Amazing that 250ish years ago the founders were concerned that what we are currently experience could and probably would happen and that it should be citizens of good virtue who make it right. Of the people, for the people, by the people - when we forget that...
Last year I read First Principles by Thomas Ricks. Like this article, it discusses how philosophy influenced the founders’ thinking and intentions. It definitely helped me understand the founding documents better.
The foresight of our founders is impressive. I agree that virtue does equal happiness. I’m convinced our current President, who lacks any virtue, morality or character, is an incredibly unhappy person. He’s likely never actually known true happiness.
This was an excellent piece about the pursuit of being good and virtuous , otherwise, known as the pursuit of happiness, so, thank you Ed Thompson Payne for writing it for all of us to read and learn from.
When the SC issued their presidential immunity decision I remember telling my husband, this means we have to elect people of virtue, people with good character. If we do otherwise, we’re screwed. No one is perfect, not me, not founders, not anyone, but character is caring about and working on being more perfect tomorrow than we are today. Can we go back to character matters?
Yes we must.
Lots to chew on here! Thanks Ed and Jeffrey. I hadn’t yet read a piece that honestly grappled with the founders’ hypocrisy while engaging with their philosophy in good faith. It makes me wonder what we can take from this to our interaction with politics today.
Several times in the last year I’ve sat down to brunch with friends who were adamantly against Trump in his first term but now find protest or action in term two as harmful to their mental health, while counterproductive to defend a country that elected him a second time. Term one could be written off as a fluke, but term two proved to them they were living in a country that wasn’t worth saving. So even my most vague mention of how things could be better is met with apprehension: “Hey, when I signed up for brunch I was thinking pancakes and mimosas, not some intrusive reminder that I have a moral duty to be the change I want to see.”
I was struck by the mention that these figures who studied Cicero included RBG and that this education was common through the mid-20th century. What changed? Is that also when we came to define the pursuit of happiness not as a call to participate in politics in good faith, but as buying bigger and more expensive toys for our kids at Christmas? More “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit” than “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”? Is this why we aren’t getting great protest songs anymore?
Can this change? Can we translate Cicero to TikTok? If the founders understood happiness as “being good” rather than “feeling good,” that implies ongoing participation in civic life, not just showing up with a ballot every four years when the stakes feel existential. Can the upcoming midterms be more than us standing still and waiting for others’ buyer’s remorse to barely eke out a housecleaning? I’d rather have a landslide cross-partisan movement toward standing for something. Can we reform our government so that we aren’t just trading jerseys, but changing the rules so that authoritarianism can’t as easily take hold again? And then we can go back to the guilt of brunch being in the calories instead of the act of pretending that everything is normal.
We’ve got less than a year until what we’ll be told is the most consequential midterm election of a lifetime. It would make me so happy, in both meanings of the word, if we could rebuild America into the great nation we already always assumed it was. But I need help. And I want to be clear: protecting your mental health isn’t selfish. But maybe the answer isn’t tuning out entirely. Maybe it can be beneficial to your mental health (relative to the nihilistic default) to pick one reform within your grasp, start locally, and coordinate with others so that combined action can see results without burning anyone out.
Anyone else put “coordinated action toward big structural change” in their new year’s resolutions? Because I need an accountability buddy. 🙂
This was very insightful. I think it confirms that without a virtuous society our democracy will fail. All of us are flawed as were the founding fathers. We all have good intentions but unless we have something bigger than ourselves to be our compass it eventually falls short in life and politics. I don’t believe they fell short because they had no virtues, (although the author didn’t say that) but because they depended on their virtue alone! They read about morality, etc., but it fell short as they didn’t hold themselves to something higher than their own standards! And sadly we are seeing this played out grievously today! I hope for a better 2026!
Thanks, Jenny! And another thought I had while reading your reply: it’s kind of ironic that we see a trend away from virtue even as we are told that modern life has never been more convenient and efficient. Like… you can load your clothes in a machine, walk away, get hours of other work done, and come back to clean clothes. That sure beats taking your clothes to the river and breaking your back to haul sopping wet clothes to a clothesline.
So why doesn’t that saved time translate into free time that can be dedicated to maintaining our democracy, when it seemed like so much more of a popular pastime before electricity changed our lives? Are we having too much fun? I doubt that’s the problem.
It seems like it’s more of an issue of framing politics as something we all ought to do, instead of a niche hobby that some masochists somehow enjoy. To be clear… I don’t enjoy this work. I want to be lazy and unplug for months and months. I just don’t see how that’s an option in today’s world. It would be nice if my friends felt the same way.
Yes I understand the frustration of friends disengaging not only from burn out, but from hearing the truth! I have to take breaks though for my sanity. I know I can’t fix everything, even when engaged. So I am trying to do what I can but also knowing it isn’t for me to produce the change alone. I have a responsibility to do something but then have to leave it and live life where I am. No matter what this administration does, I can still do good where I am and push against the brokenness!
Yes we all can.
Actually, the problem really might be having too much fun! I just read "Amusing Ourselves to Death"
Even though the book was written 40 years ago, the premise seems even more relevant. It's a quick read, or at the very least look up the summary, I think you'll find it interesting and helpful in understanding some aspects of our current predicament.
Oop! That sounds extremely relevant and going on my list.
Yeh, I'm feeling the need to be more politically involved now since The Donald has hit the scene.
Let's be brutally honest with ourselves, folks. None of us are without faults and hangups . Thomas Jefferson was honest enough to admit that he didn't know how to live without slave help because he was helpless himself when it came to being self sufficient , would be my guess. We weren't in his skin ,so, we can't really know his fear of providing for himself. Maybe he truly was born with a silver spoon in his mouth but he did help author the Constitution and it's Preamble ,which in and of itself, was amazing. John Adams on the other hand was of the Puritan tradition in Massachusetts and was opposed to slavery and had none on his farm . He paid all of his workers wages . George Washington had slaves as did many other of the founding fathers , but the point taken is that as we strive for a virtuous life we are not completely free of the possibility of yielding to the prurient interests that reside in our subconscious minds, otherwise known as, the Id.
Excellent post. I just posted that we need to put the idea that the Founders linked happiness with virtue and not greed, although acknowledging the power of greed, front and center in conversations and political words and actions going forward.
He also linked happiness with being good and not just feeling good.
Everyone will have to find their own level of political involvement this year and act upon it in their own way in their own spheres of influence. Not everyone is a RaRa type of cheerleader in all things political , but can still be effective as a part of the whole that will help change things for the better . These conversations on Substacks are great as they allow people the chance to participate in commenting on issues of great concern to many of us who don't like what is happening in DC right now and ,yes, this election will be sooo important to start the turnaround so badly needed in our country.
Thank you for some insights that were new to me and that shine a light on some very important ideas. One is that happiness and virtue are intertwined. In today's world, they seem far apart. Linking together has never meant perfection, as we see going back to the Founders; but they saw that it was a worthy goal and were conscious of its importance. And, clearly, greed was acknowledged as a stumbling block to virtue. I think the idea of a critical link between happiness and virtue should be front and center in many conversations going forward, given that it seems completely absent at this point!
Great article. Amazing that 250ish years ago the founders were concerned that what we are currently experience could and probably would happen and that it should be citizens of good virtue who make it right. Of the people, for the people, by the people - when we forget that...
The travesty is when good people do nothing.
That last paragraph hit especially hard.
Last year I read First Principles by Thomas Ricks. Like this article, it discusses how philosophy influenced the founders’ thinking and intentions. It definitely helped me understand the founding documents better.
Me, too.
Is it possible to add the listening option to the post? Thank you!
The foresight of our founders is impressive. I agree that virtue does equal happiness. I’m convinced our current President, who lacks any virtue, morality or character, is an incredibly unhappy person. He’s likely never actually known true happiness.
This was an excellent piece about the pursuit of being good and virtuous , otherwise, known as the pursuit of happiness, so, thank you Ed Thompson Payne for writing it for all of us to read and learn from.
Thank you!
Meant they depended on their own virtue!