The Great American Experiment
Highlights, reflection and recommendations from your pals at This Day podcast
Hey everyone, Jody here. I hope you’re having a reflective, regenerative long weekend. We’ve got a few episodes out right now that feel like good holiday-weekend fodder, including a great conversation today about the building of the National Highway System and the joys of the Great American Road Trip. Check it out, and let us know what your favorite highway is.
Part of me wants to turn my brain all the way off on this holiday weekend — and we all deserve that from time to time — but there’s no denying that this Fourth of July “hits different,” as they say. We’re in the midst of a moment that is shaking the foundations of our democracy. On twitter, we asked for your reflections, and I’ll ask the same here. Feel free to respond over there, or in the comments of this newsletter.
As you may have heard, I’m the organizer behind an effort to encourage podcasters to use their platform to sound the alarm about the assault on democracy. If you’ve heard these messages on our show or elsewhere, please let us know. If you’re a podcaster who wants to get involved, please reach out.
Meanwhile, I’m not much one for memes, but I stumbled across this on instagram and it genuinely helped me. I share it with you now!
Quotes of the Week
Hey everyone, Khawla here. I transcribe episodes for this podcast and am one of the writers of the newsletter. After a week of reruns (pairing our episodes with other Radiotopia episodes), we were back with great new episodes about the reapportionment act, lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the “dinner table bargain,” which inspired the Hamilton song The Room Where it Happens.
Most Americans couldn’t name their member of congress, but they could name their senators. In part because members of the house have no real vehicle anymore to actually make a name for themselves beyond social media trolling.
And when we talk about trying to pass laws, there’s probably too many legislators. At 435, each individual doesn’t really have any say in anything. But when you talk about actually delivering for people, then there aren’t enough. Because you should really only represent a couple hundred thousand people, an amount that you can actually do constituent work for.
- Philip Bump, from our episode on the 1929 reapportionment act and how we’ve been stuck on roughly 435 representatives for close to a century. Check out Phillip Bumps’ newsletter, How to Read This Chart.
The mugshot of Abramoff leaving the hearing… if you googled “worst things to wear when leaving court for a corruption scandal” — that’s what would come up.
- Jody Avirgan, from our episode on Jack Abramoff Scandal.
If you look back it does seem like Virginia got the short end of the deal. I mean, Hamilton got to set up this financial system exactly as he wanted. He decided on the economic system of the United States. And Virginia only got the location of the capitol.
- Nicole Hemmer, from our episode on the dinner table bargain.
On This Day: July 1st
We pick a recent day, and bring you some stuff that happened on that day!
July 1st 1968: After a couple decades of duck and cover drills in schools, the United States, Soviet Union and United Kingdom, along with many other countries, signed the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.
July 1st 1863: the battle of Gettysburg began. It lasted until July 3rd. It was the largest number of mass casualties during the entire Civil War.
July 1st 1847: the US Post Office issued their first stamps, a 5-cent stamp honoring Benjamin Franklin and a 10-cent stamp honoring George Washington.
July 1st 1891: Theodore Roosevelt and his cavalry stormed Kettle Hill to capture San Juan Hill complex, a key moment in the Spanish-American war. Two days later, the Spanish relinquished their control of Cuba and US Marines landed in Cuba on June 10th.
Closing Esoterica
Links and thoughts courtesy of This Day researcher Jacob Feldman.
Title IX just turned 50, and The New York Times celebrated with this fantastic short doc on Patsy T. Mink, the former Representative of Hawaii who wrote and defended the law as the first woman of color elected to congress. Don’t worry! We’ll get to her on the podcast soon.
A few other suggestions to get you to (or through) a Holiday weekend:
A summer read for any bibliophiles, or fans of Anthony Doerr's last book, All the Light We Cannot See
Slow Horses, an Apple TV+ spy show I’m just getting to, but already looking forward to finishing. (I’ll have to get to Hulu’s evidently great spy show next)
This collection of stories (recent and older) on reproductive rights and last week’s Dobbs decision, from our friends at The Sunday Long Read.
Here’s a twitter account that is chronicling the events of the movie Independence Day as they happen in real time.
Final thought.
Dad hats are in now, if you haven’t heard. If we made a This Day hat, what catchphrase should we put on it?
I’m thinking about the last time the Supreme Court was expanded, 1896, from 5 to 9 justices… I’ve heard that was in response to Plessy v Ferguson (1896). Which seems entirely analogous to this term’s batch of SCOTUS decisions. I’d say it’s time to add 8 more justices.
I was wrong. The court was allowed to shrink through retirements while Johnson was President, but snapped back from size 6 to size 9 as soon as Grant took office (April 10, 1869). Plessy v Ferguson was argued on April 13, 1896. I was confused by 1869 vs 1896.