These Truths: A History of the United States

The climate had changed in Philadelphia since the Constitutional Convention of 1787: The annual temperature was seven degrees warmer. Not long after Donald Trump announced that he would withdraw the US from the Paris climate accord, “a trillion-ton iceberg the size of the state of Delaware broke off of Antarctica” (785).

The United States itself began with an act of severance, which culminated in an attempt to bring disparate strains together. The Constitution tried to create a more perfect union, though it would be the formerly enslaved and their descendants who would most faithfully bring that vision to fruition. The nation that had been born during an era of revolutions would “forever struggle against chaos” (786). With Trump’s election, some commentators announced the end of the republic. Americans seemed to be fighting more than ever, particularly over the prevalence of monuments that reminded the nation of its oppressive past. People again began to question the truths on which the nation was founded and their validity. Conservatives still based their right to power on the supposed failures of liberalism, particularly its obsessive focus on identity politics. They focused on winning elections, while liberals, Lepore contends, have seemed to focus more on winning court cases and carrying out social-justice crusades.