How to Keep Our Republic
Little platoons have large consequences
On the last day of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Elizabeth Willing Powel, a prominent Philadelphia socialite, asked Benjamin Franklin what form of government was being proposed for the United States. In a reply that has become famous, Franklin said: “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.”
Franklin’s words, often cited to show that the Founders recognized the profound vulnerability of the republican order they crafted, are easy partisan fodder in times of controversy or crisis. Activists, pundits, and politicians have long invoked them to tag their opponents or their opponents’ ideas as precisely the sort of existential threat to a fragile American system that the Founders anticipated might arise.
It is highly unlikely, however, that any one policy, law, or politician would pose such a threat. Even presidents who pushed the limits of their office’s power, from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Donald Trump, have not dismantled our republic’s core institutions or set us on a course toward autocracy, monarchy, or dictatorship. This year, as we commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we also celebrate a quarter millennium without an American Caesar or Napoleon.
Yet there is a sense building in the national consciousness that something isn’t right. A December 2025 Gallup poll found that just 24 percent of Americans were satisfied with the nation’s direction. A Politico poll from a month prior found that 49 percent of Americans thought that the country’s best times lay in the past, while only 41 percent thought that America’s best times are yet to come. As a professor, I interact frequently with young people. Among students of diverse political persuasions and worldviews, I have noticed a shared sense that our institutions, norms, and cultural and social fabric are collectively undergoing a period of decline.
As we approach our nation’s 250th anniversary, why do so many people believe that America is on the brink? The answer is complex.
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Read more at National Review. This article appears as “Keeping Our Republic” in the March 2026 print edition.
Originally published on January 22, 2026.