"Two hundred years ago, our Founding Fathers gave us a democracy. It was based upon the simple, yet noble, idea that government derives its validity from the consent of the governed"
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Two hundred years is a sly measurement here: long enough to sound reverent, close enough to feel like an IOU coming due. Tsongas isn’t just praising the Founding Fathers; he’s drafting them into a contemporary argument about legitimacy. By calling democracy a gift, he flatters the national self-image, then immediately narrows what counts as real democracy to one test: consent. Not tradition, not markets, not military might. Consent.
The phrase “simple, yet noble” performs a double move. It romanticizes the principle while warning that we’ve complicated it, diluted it, maybe even forgotten it. That’s the subtext: if government is drifting from consent, it’s drifting from validity. “Validity” is a legalistic word, cooler than “morality” and tougher than “popularity.” It implies something can be formally in power and still, in a deeper sense, not fully authorized.
Context matters because Tsongas was a late-20th-century Democrat, a fiscal hawk with reformist instincts, speaking in an era of rising cynicism about Washington, money in politics, and voter alienation. Invoking the Founders is bipartisan currency, but the way he spends it is pointed: he frames citizenship as an ongoing contract, not a one-time revolution sealed in parchment.
There’s also a quiet corrective embedded in “consent of the governed.” It implies the governed are not an audience but a source. Democracy, in this telling, isn’t a vibe; it’s a receipt.
The phrase “simple, yet noble” performs a double move. It romanticizes the principle while warning that we’ve complicated it, diluted it, maybe even forgotten it. That’s the subtext: if government is drifting from consent, it’s drifting from validity. “Validity” is a legalistic word, cooler than “morality” and tougher than “popularity.” It implies something can be formally in power and still, in a deeper sense, not fully authorized.
Context matters because Tsongas was a late-20th-century Democrat, a fiscal hawk with reformist instincts, speaking in an era of rising cynicism about Washington, money in politics, and voter alienation. Invoking the Founders is bipartisan currency, but the way he spends it is pointed: he frames citizenship as an ongoing contract, not a one-time revolution sealed in parchment.
There’s also a quiet corrective embedded in “consent of the governed.” It implies the governed are not an audience but a source. Democracy, in this telling, isn’t a vibe; it’s a receipt.
Quote Details
| Topic | Freedom |
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