That prospect recently drew unmistakably closer, courtesy of the U.S. Supreme Court. First, justices overturned more than a century of legal precedent that had allowed communities in California to limit public gun possession — endangering laws that have spared us from some of the American epidemic of gun deaths by murder, suicide and accident. Then, the court reversed Roe v. Wade and eliminated the federal constitutional right to abortion — a right protected by our state constitution as a right of privacy and supported by majorities of Californians of every political party, region and demographic group.

Is the Great American Experiment dead, or simply on life support? And, if it is, how do we revive it?

“The Great American Experiment can be summed up as rejection of the European Ancient Regime in favor of political equality in the form of a constitutional republic. While America’s founding fathers excluded African slaves, native Americans and women from this equality, with devastating results, still the American Revolution was a first step – a turning point in human history.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.