The Power Player Amendments with Devendra Banhart

More Perfect

WNYC Studios

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4.8 • 14.7K Ratings

🗓️ 20 November 2018

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The 25th and 26th Amendments — ratified in 1967 and 1971, respectively — are some of the newest additions to our founding document. However, they tackle some pretty basic questions: who gets to rule, and who gets to vote? If a president dies or is incapacitated, who takes over? And how old do you have to be in order to participate in American democracy?

In recent months, the 25th Amendment has swirled in and out of news cycles as Americans debate what it takes to declare a president unfit for office. But this episode looks back, even before the 25th Amendment was ratified, at a moment in 1919 when President Woodrow Wilson became bedridden by stroke, and his wife, Edith Wilson, became our country’s unofficial first female president.

The 26th Amendment is best encapsulated in a Vietnam-era slogan: “Old enough to fight, old enough to vote.” Eighteen-year-olds at the time argued that if they were old enough to be drafted to fight in the war, they were old enough to have a voice in our democracy. But what about today, when even younger Americans are becoming victims of gun violence and finding themselves at the center of national political debates? Does it mean we should lower the voting age even further?

When you're done with the episode, check out songs by Devendra Banhart and Suburban Living inspired by Amendments 25 and 26 on "27: The Most Perfect Album."

In Season Three, More Perfect is taking our camera lens off the Supreme Court and zooming in on the words of the people: the 27 amendments that We The People have made to our Constitution. We're taking on these 27 amendments both in song and in story. This episode is best listened to alongside "27: The Most Perfect Album," an entire album (an ALBUM!) and digital experience of original music and art inspired by the 27 Amendments. Think of these episodes as the audio liner notes.

You can listen to all of the songs on "27: The Most Perfect Album" on YouTube and watch music videos from the album, including this one from Devendra Banhart.

Video illustration by Justin Buschardt.Video animation by The Mighty Coconut.

Special thanks to The White House Historical Association.

Follow us on Instagram, Threads and Facebook @moreperfectpodcast, and X (Twitter) @moreperfect.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is More Perfect. I'm Chad Abumrod. As you probably know if you have listened to any of the previous episodes of the season that we have decided to make an album, it's called 27, the most perfect album, we reached out to a bunch of musicians to create songs inspired by the amendments
0:15.9	to the U.S. Constitution, of which there are 27.
0:19.6	And on the podcast, and by the way, if you want to hear hear all the music you can go to the most perfect album.org all the songs are there.
0:26.4	On the podcast we are creating little liner notes for the songs like little small takes on how these amendments came to be
0:36.8	or what they mean to us now. We're marching right along. We're getting close to the end.
0:42.1	Today we have two amendments and two songs.
0:45.8	We're going to start with 25th Amendment.
0:50.7	If you've been paying attention to the news recently, you know that the 25th Amendment has been having a moment.
0:56.1	Trump officials have considered attempts to remove him from office.
0:59.0	There were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th amendment.
1:03.4	And of course that would require the cabinet members to vote out President Trump to remove him.
1:08.1	The 25th amendment is totally irrelevant to what's going on.
1:11.3	This is the amendment that deals with how do you remove a sitting
1:14.2	president from office who may not be fit to serve.
1:17.4	Section 4 whenever the vice president and a majority of either the principal
1:21.7	officers of the executive departments or of such other
1:24.6	body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and
1:30.0	the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable
1:34.4	to discharge the powers and duties of...
1:36.7	It goes on a bit.
1:37.7	I mean, it basically says if you don't think the President's up to snuff, here's how you
1:40.9	here's how you get him out.
	...

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