Скачать или смотреть The Dying Citizen: How the Middle Class, the Constitution, and the Idea of America Are Unraveling

What happens when citizens forget how to govern themselves?
In this episode of The Deep Dive, we explore Victor Davis Hanson’s The Dying Citizen and how America’s founding ideal of self-government is being dismantled, economically, culturally, and politically.

Hanson argues that citizenship, once the cornerstone of freedom, is dying from both above and below. The middle class that sustained the Republic is shrinking, government dependence is growing, and unelected elites are redefining what it means to belong to a nation. The result is a slow transformation from a nation of citizens to a society of subjects.

Our hosts unpack Hanson’s warning that true citizenship requires three things: independence, shared identity, and responsibility. When these fade, so does freedom. They examine how modern America’s cultural fragmentation, debt-driven politics, and bureaucratic overreach are undermining those very foundations.

From the Founders’ vision of the self-reliant citizen farmer to the rise of the administrative state, this episode traces how the meaning of citizenship has changed and what it costs when people stop believing their participation matters. Hanson warns that the greatest threat to liberty is not invasion from abroad but apathy and dependence at home.

If you have ever wondered why so many Americans feel powerless in their own country or what it would take to revive the spirit of civic independence, this episode offers a clear-eyed look at how to rebuild the foundation of self-government.

So pour a cup of coffee, take a breath, and listen. You might just rediscover what freedom sounds like.