For right, McCay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness Podcast.

Now when Americans think about their country's founding fathers, they tend to think that

it's cool and competent figures who were supremely confident and superiority in longevity

of the Republican government they had created.

But my guess says that nearly all the founders experience great internal and external conflict

and conjunction with the new government and can be greatly pessimistic about the future

of the democratic experiment they had helped birth.

His name is Dennis C. Rasmussen, he's a professor of political theory and the author of

fears of a setting sun, the disillusionment of America's founders.

Today on the show, Dennis unpacks how four of the founders, George Washington, Alexander

Hamilton, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, ultimately came to worry that the American

Republic wouldn't last past their own generation, based on concerns that ranged in the rise

of partisanship to the lack of virtue amongst the American citizenry.

Dennis also discusses why it was that one founder, James Madison, remained optimistic about

the future of the country.

We under conversation with why the disillusionment of the founders actually carries a message

of hope for us.

After the show's over, check out our show notes at aam.islashfoundingfathers.

Dennis Rasmussen, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me.

So you got a new book out, Fiers of a Setting Sun, the disillusionment of America's founders.

Now I think when most Americans think of the founding fathers, they're almost like demigods.

...