Ep. 220: American’s rageful Jacobins are the real threat to democracy

The problem for democracies throughout the ages has always been the rage and impatience of mobs with any limits on their power to act on their impulses. According to JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin, such movements have become a major factor driving not just divisive politics  and threats to liberty but also antisemitism. He’s joined in this week’s episode of Think Twice by law professor, Fox News legal analyst Jonathan Turley, author of the new book, Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution. Turley traces the history of this potent threat to freedom by discussing both the American and French revolutions and how they differed. His hero is Thomas Paine, the author of pamphlets and books that inspired both world events but who has been shunted to the side by many historians. The problem that undermines all attempts at government by consent of the governed is when crowds of people, inflamed by the passions of the moment, seek direct democracy without limits. As history teaches us, Turley explains, that usually leads to violence and the end of freedom. The one example where that was avoided was the American experiment because of the adoption of a Constitution that created checks and balances that spoke to the founders fears of mob rule. That didn’t happen in France and that’s why their revolution failed. Yet while the American system has worked well for 250 years, the threats to its survival are real. Chief among them, Turley says, are what he calls the new Jacobins, the politicians, professors and journalists who want to “reform” or trash the Constitution in order to allow them to enact radical change that is antithetical to freedom. The same factors, he says, are behind the current surge in antisemitism. Such rage is, Turley asserts, corruptive, addictive and contagious. Revolutions, like the mythical story of Saturn, eat their children. Antisemitism is one of those forms of rage. It has that sort of release for some people. It leads inevitably to violence such as the attacks on Jews as well as the murder of Charlie Kirk and the assassination attempts on President Donald Trump. Listen/Subscribe to weekly episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, iHeart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.   Watch new episodes every week by subscribing to the JNS YouTube Channel.