The Way Out: Retracing America's Steps to Find Our Future

As Benjamin Franklin stepped out of the Pennsylvania Statehouse after a long, hot summer as senior delegate to the Constitutional Convention, he said to a bystander, “We have given you a republic—if you can keep it.” In 2016, the evidence is clear that Americans have lost it. Bradford Whitman takes us on a carefully crafted, authentic journey in history and civics to retrieve stunningly foresighted advice from the Founders for rehabilitating the republic. He sets out the “fundamental principles” for our democratic republic. The second phase is to diagnose America’s disease as a physician would diagnose a patient. The key is to examine prior episodes of good health and functionality and the opposite. A pattern emerges of susceptibility to disease that is consistent with the predictions and the nature of the republic. In the process, as Whitman interweaves the past and the present, we come to know America and the people vividly enough to develop a “way out” consistent with the original plan and bolstered by modern experiments in democracy reform. Mr. Whitman’s legal career, especially at the Justice Department in Washington in the 1970’s, inspired and guided him and allowed him to make complex subjects, events, and people not only comprehensible, but fascinating. He makes a powerful case for his diagnosis of America’s progressive, systemic disease and for a multifaceted “treatment regimen” for politics, government, and industry. This process relies on popular education and engagement paired with independent expertise and integrity to achieve the Founders’ goal of “censoring our Governors.” The book is a rallying cry—and much more.