Quote of the Day (Anne Applebaum, on American Culture, ‘No Longer Synonymous With the Aspiration to Freedom’)

“American culture is no longer synonymous with the aspiration to freedom, but with transactionalism and secrecy: the algorithms that mysteriously determine what you see, the money collected by anonymous billionaires, the deals that the American president is making with world leaders that benefit himself and maybe others whose names we don’t know. America was always associated with capitalism, business, and markets, but nowadays there’s no pretense that anyone else will be invited to share the wealth. USAID is gone; American humanitarianism is depleted; America’s international medical infrastructure was dismantled so quickly that people died in the process. The image of the ugly American always competed with the image of the generous American. Now that the latter has disappeared, the only Americans anyone can see are the ones trying to rip you off.”— Pulitzer-prize winning American historian Anne Applebaum, “The Beacon of Democracy Goes Dark,” The Atlantic, November 2025

By all means, as you’re watching Ken Burns’ multi-part documentary on the American Revolution this week, please read as many articles as you can from The Atlantic’s November issue, which is entirely devoted to “The Unfinished Revolution.”

In this year of PBS budget cuts, Burns has been enormously careful in interviews not to sound like he’s taking an ideological, let alone party, side. That won’t stop those inclined from thinking he is indeed “woke.”

For those like me who fear that he might pull his punches, The Atlantic will provide some much-needed perspective, especially the pieces by Applebaum, Fintan O’Toole (“What the Founders Would Say Now”), and David Brooks (“The Rising”). They remind us that the commitment to equality and against despotism was a near-run thing 250 years ago, and perhaps even more so today.