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How would you fill in the blanks for these four statements?

Statement one.

At the founding of the United States, some of the country's most important political values were blank.

Number two, after 250 years of U.S. history, I would describe the country's track record of following through on those values and ideals as blank. Statement number three, right now,

an outside observer would likely look at our politics and say we value blank. And finally,

four, when it comes to the United States as a country over the next

decade or century, I want to see blank. One of you shared this. The country's most important

political values at the founding were democracy, not kings, checks and balances, genocidal, and

colonialists. Another view shared this.

The country's track record on its values was limited, unfinished but trending in the wrong direction,

fair, middling at best, consistent, and successful. As part of a special issue coming out this

November, the Atlantic Magazine tasked

writers and historians with looking at the country's founding and with the U.S., its people,

and its political thinkers valued at the beginning. Today on 1A, we go back to our country's

beginnings to remind all of us of the ideas in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and other important revolutionary documents,

and to examine how reconnecting with those ideas might help us as we struggle to keep U.S. democracy together 250 years later.

I'm Jen White. You're listening to the 1A podcast. Stay with us. We've got a lot to get into.

Support for NPR, and the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

RWJF is a national philanthropy, working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege,

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