Our ailing democracy needs help
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Photo Illustration by Tyswan Stewart / Times Union
On the Fourth of July, 1976, America staged a huge birthday party on the National Mall. A million people showed up. As dusk fell, families spread out on blankets, old folks set up lawn chairs and strangers shared picnics with each other while awaiting the fireworks.
It was a glorious time. Our nation had survived the many traumas of the 1960s and the more recent assault of Watergate. We were torn and bruised, but steadied by the sense that our democracy was strong enough to withstand the abuses of those who would betray the Republic by lying or cheating to get ahead. Our government was divided a Democratic Congress, a Republican White House but our disagreements as citizens did not define us.
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Commentary: Llewellyn King - Capitol enshrines all the best of our aspirations
Llewellyn King
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Cry, the beloved building.
I have been lucky and have walked the halls of the Houses of Parliament in London, visited the Elysée Palace in Paris, the Bundestag in Berlin and the Kremlin in Moscow.
But it is the Capitol, the building on a hill in Washington, that fills me with awe but it isn’t awesome or frightening, and doesn’t exalt in power.
The Capitol is at once romantic, imposing and egalitarian. Ever since I first set foot on Capitol Hill, the building has been for me, an immigrant, the elegant expression of everything that is best about America: open, accessible and shared.