Victor Davis Hanson interviews historian Arthur Herman about his book “Founders’ Fire: From 1776 to the Age of Trump,” linking the Founding Fathers to later American business and technology founders and arguing they drive American exceptionalism through risk-taking and innovation. Herman describes a recurring cycle in which founder energy becomes institutionalized and bureaucratic until crises like the Civil War and World War II spark renewal, and he ties recent political turbulence and Trump’s rise to a similar governance crisis and a push to reinvent government around founding principles. They address attacks on wealth and “robber baron” narratives, the role of patents and the pursuit of happiness in enabling entrepreneurship, the outsider traits common among founders, and a shift from globalization to an innovation-first model amid regulation, censorship, and antitrust pressures.
Hello Victor!
If I dare to be so casual with one of the greatest thinkers of our time. I’m amazed to find out I may one day be considered a “founder” of sorts according to Arthur Herman, another expansion of capacitia en la’ cabesa’. Or is it en la’ cabesa’, de capacitia of which I am in awe? (Capicity an absolute guess)
As a young Goldwater, then Reagan Tea Party republican turned Constitutionalist for the last 50 years, it’s particularly pleasing to think that my last shot at fame, an innovative training modality we call “PLANTRONICS Industrial Training” might allow me to join such an illustrious crowd. Bill
bill@darbysimplant.com http://www.darbysimplant.com