DRAFT: SUBJECT TO CHANGE
Introduction to American Politics
CMC Government 20 Honors Fall 2026
MW 9:35-10:50AMRoberts North 15
J.J. Pitney
Office: Kravis 232
E-mail: jpitney@cmc.edu
Student Hours:
- Monday and Wednesday, 1-2 PM
- If these times are inconvenient, just make an appointment for an in-person or Zoom meeting.
General
Daniel Patrick Moynihan observed: “Some . . . deny the existence of evil and others the existence of grace. The art of politics is to live with the reality of both.” With this comment in mind, we take a realistic overview of American politics. This course aims to:
- Help you understand past and present political events.
- Lay the groundwork for further study of government.
- Sharpen your thinking, writing, and speaking.
In addition to providing general background on American politics, this course also emphasizes certain themes. One is the continuing relevance of the Declaration of Independence. Since 1776, Americans have argued about its meaning, particularly the phrase "that all men are created equal." We shall examine ways in which the United States has both honored these ideals and fallen short of them.
Another is the central role of religion in American political life. Tocqueville said that religion is the first of our political institutions, and we shall ponder what he meant.
A third is the meaning of citizenship and its connection to deliberation and community service. Finally, we will consider the role of mores and norms, the unwritten practices, habits, and attitudes that guide political activity.
Some of the readings are provocative. Do not assume that your professor agrees with everything in the readings, or that you need to do so. Because constructive disagreement sharpens thinking, deepens understanding, and reveals novel insights, I not only encourage it, I expect it. Feel free to challenge anything you read, but back up what you say. Bring light, not heat.
Classes
Classes will include lecture and discussion. Finish the readings before class because our discussions will involve those readings. We shall also talk about breaking news, so you must read a good news source such as Axios or Politico.
Grades
- One 3-page essay 15%
- One 4-page research paper 20%
- One 6-page research paper 25%
- Take-home final 25%
- Participation and weekly writeups 15%
The papers will develop your research and writing skills. In grading, I will take account of the quality of your writing, applying the principles of Strunk and White’s Elements of Style. If you object, do not take this course or anything else I teach.
The take-home final will test your comprehension of the class sessions and readings. In addition to the required readings (below), I may also give you attachments and web links covering current events and basic factual information. The final will cover this material.
Participation includes your activity in class and online. I will call on students at random, and if you often miss sessions or fail to prepare, your grade will suffer. In addition, you may volunteer comments and questions. This experience will hone your ability to think on your feet.
Our class blog is right here at https://www.gov20h.blogspot.com. I shall post videos, graphs, news stories, and other material there. We shall use some of this material in class, and you may review the rest at your convenience.
Required Books
In addition to the readings below, I may also supply you with additional material via the Internet.
Aug 31, Sept 2: Introduction
["O]f those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants." -- Alexander Hamilton
"So this is how liberty dies... with thunderous applause." - Padmé Amidala
"All vice presidents eat enormous bowls of feces. That's the job." -- Jonah Goldberg (P `25)
Oct 21: Law and the Courts
"In all, the legislative process helps ensure each of us has a stake in the laws that govern us and in the Nation’s future. For some today, the weight of those virtues is apparent. For others, it may not seem so obvious. But if history is any guide, the tables will turn and the day will come when those disappointed by today’s result will appreciate the legislative process for the bulwark of liberty it is." -- Justice Neil Gorsuch (P `24)
Oct 26, 28: Citizenship, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights
"I met my wife in jail after being arrested during a civil rights march." -- Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC)
"Mass violence in Congress seemed possible in 1850 ... The echoes of 1850 are striking. We’re at a moment of extreme polarization when outcomes matter, sometimes profoundly." -- Joanne Freeman, PO `84
Nov 16, 18: Protest and Social Movements
"What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation." -- Eric Hoffer
Return to homepage
The take-home final will test your comprehension of the class sessions and readings. In addition to the required readings (below), I may also give you attachments and web links covering current events and basic factual information. The final will cover this material.
Participation includes your activity in class and online. I will call on students at random, and if you often miss sessions or fail to prepare, your grade will suffer. In addition, you may volunteer comments and questions. This experience will hone your ability to think on your feet.
Blog
Details
- Check due dates for coursework. Do not plan on extensions.
- As a courtesy to your fellow students, please arrive on time, and refrain from eating in class.
- I strongly recommend that you take notes the old-fashioned way, by hand, on paper. Why? Research shows that it works better.
- Plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty are not victimless offenses because they hurt fellow students. Please study our Statement of Academic Integrity, which reads in part: "Each faculty member has the responsibility to report cases of academic dishonesty to the Academic Standards Committee."
- You may use AI to brainstorm, format graphs, and locate sources, but misrepresenting AI-generated content as your own original work constitutes plagiarism.
- This class welcomes viewpoint diversity. See: https://heterodoxacademy.org/library/advice-on-syllabus-language/
- Your experience in this class matters to me, and I have a particular interest in disability. If you have set up accommodations with Accessibility Services at CMC, please tell me about your approved accommodations so we can discuss your needs. You can start by forwarding your accommodation letter to me. If you have not yet set up accommodations but have a temporary health condition or permanent disability, please email Aridai Martinez, Associate Director of Accessibility Services, at accessibilityservices@cmc.edu to ask questions and start the process. For general information and the Request for Accommodations form, go to the CMC Accessibility Services website.
- Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals (New York: Vintage, 1989).
- Danielle Allen, Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality (New York: Liveright, 2014).
- Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay, The Federalist Papers (New York: Signet, 2003 [1788]). It includes the Constitution as an appendix.
- Kenneth P. Miller, Texas vs. California: A History of Their Struggle for the Future of America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020).
- William Strunk and E. B. White, The Elements of Style, 4th ed. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999).
- Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. George Lawrence, ed. J.P. Mayer (New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, [1835/40]). Please use the Lawrence/Mayer edition, which has undergone several printings. Other translations have different wording, which would cause confusion.
- Ilan Wurman, A Debt Against the Living: An Introduction to Originalism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017).
In addition to the readings below, I may also supply you with additional material via the Internet.
Aug 31, Sept 2: Introduction
"Without missing a beat, King started improvising, transforming from a packaged presenter of rehearsed oratory into the Baptist preacher he was, letting his baritone voice whose words could dance like a melody, escape for the first time." -- Rob Carpenter `06, Of Kennedy and King.
- Martin Luther King, "I Have a Dream," August 28, 1963. For the video, click here.
- Declaration of Independence,
- Allen, prologue, ch. 1-4.
Sept 7: Labor Day, no class.
"I have a lot of international friends - to them I ask, do you want to know what America is? It's this video. Where a black man and a band made up of Asian men perform a white woman's song so well that a lady in a hijab takes their card - all in front of an Italian restaurant and a waving American flag. I love this place!" (See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UG8Qo-paJ9M) -- Aseem Chipalkatti `15
Sept 9: Reading and Writing about Politics
"If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people." -- Calvin Coolidge
“I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers—and it was not there . . . in her fertile fields and boundless forests and it was not there . . . in her rich mines and her vast world commerce—and it was not there . . . in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution—and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.” -- Not Alexis de Tocqueville
- Allen, ch. 5-18.
"If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people." -- Calvin Coolidge
- Allen, ch. 19-45.
- Frederick Douglass, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" July 5, 1852.
- Alexander Stephens, "The Cornerstone Speech," March 21, 1861.
FIRST ESSAY ASSIGNED BY SEPTEMBER 14,
DUE IN CANVAS BY SEPTEMBER 25.
READ STRUNK AND WHITE FIRST!
Sept 21, 23: Equality of Condition and American Civic Culture
“I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers—and it was not there . . . in her fertile fields and boundless forests and it was not there . . . in her rich mines and her vast world commerce—and it was not there . . . in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution—and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.” -- Not Alexis de Tocqueville
- Tocqueville, 9-20, 231-261, 277-315, 340-363, 525-530.
- Allen, ch. 46-50, and epilogue
- Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address.
- Barack Obama's keynote address at the Sojourners/Call to Renewal "Building a Covenant for a New America," June 26, 2006,
Sept 28, 30: Constitutionalism and Democratic Norms
["O]f those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants." -- Alexander Hamilton
"So this is how liberty dies... with thunderous applause." - Padmé Amidala
- The Constitution, at Hamilton, pp. 542-568.
- Wurman, Introduction, ch. 1-5.
- Hamilton, Federalist # 1, 8, 9, 10, 39, 49, 51.
- Akhil Reed Amar, "Founding Myths," ch. 2 of Myth America, ed. Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer (New York: Basic, 2022) ON CANVAS.
SECOND PAPER ASSIGNED SEPT 28,
DUE IN CANVAS BY OCT 16
Oct 5, 7: Congress and the Executive I
“When I was first elected to the House, I looked for the they. They who run things. They who know how things really work. They who know what they are doing. But I couldn’t find the they. I went to the Senate. But there was still no they. And then I started to get invited to the White House, and to closed-door briefings, and to meetings with top officials. No they. What I finally realized is that there is no they. There is only we, and we usually don’t know what the f--- we’re doing.” -- Lindsey Graham
- Hamilton, Federalist # 47, 48, 57, 63.
- Tocqueville, 196-230.
- Excerpts from House and Senate memoirs and readings, ON CANVAS.
"All vice presidents eat enormous bowls of feces. That's the job." -- Jonah Goldberg (P `25)
- Hamilton, Federalist # 70, 71, 73
- Tocqueville, pp. 121-138, 690-695
- Excerpts from executive-branch memoirs and readings. ON CANVAS.
- Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Annual Convention of the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Florida, March 8, 1983.
OCT 19: FALL BREAK
"In all, the legislative process helps ensure each of us has a stake in the laws that govern us and in the Nation’s future. For some today, the weight of those virtues is apparent. For others, it may not seem so obvious. But if history is any guide, the tables will turn and the day will come when those disappointed by today’s result will appreciate the legislative process for the bulwark of liberty it is." -- Justice Neil Gorsuch (P `24)
- Tocqueville, pp. 99-105, 262-276
- Federalist # 78.
- Wurman, ch. 6.
THIRD PAPER ASSIGNED OCTOBER 21,
DUE IN CANVAS BY NOV 6.
"I met my wife in jail after being arrested during a civil rights march." -- Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC)
- Wurman, ch. 7-8, epilogue.
- Federalist # 84
- Seneca Falls Declaration.
- Edwards v. Aguillard (482 U.S. 578 (1987)).
Nov 2, 4: Parties and Elections
"A congressional campaign is a lot like unmedicated childbirth: it's painful, it's messy, you don't think you can do what's required even as you're doing it, you likely consented to it months ago and now you're questioning your decisions, your likelihood to request drugs increases proportionally as you get closer to the big event, you gained weight, you don't realize you're screaming but everyone around you looks distressed, and your mother doesn't remember what it's like. Also, once you get what you want, you'll never sleep again. I'm sure there are things I'm missing, but I hear hormones make you forget so you'll do it every two years." -- Candace Valenzuela (CMC `06), 2020 candidate for US House, Texas 24.
"A congressional campaign is a lot like unmedicated childbirth: it's painful, it's messy, you don't think you can do what's required even as you're doing it, you likely consented to it months ago and now you're questioning your decisions, your likelihood to request drugs increases proportionally as you get closer to the big event, you gained weight, you don't realize you're screaming but everyone around you looks distressed, and your mother doesn't remember what it's like. Also, once you get what you want, you'll never sleep again. I'm sure there are things I'm missing, but I hear hormones make you forget so you'll do it every two years." -- Candace Valenzuela (CMC `06), 2020 candidate for US House, Texas 24.
- Mike Madrid, The Latino Century: How America's Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2024). EXCERPTS AT CANVAS.
- Readings on the 2026 midterm, TBD.
Nov 9, 11: Parties and Interest Groups
"Mass violence in Congress seemed possible in 1850 ... The echoes of 1850 are striking. We’re at a moment of extreme polarization when outcomes matter, sometimes profoundly." -- Joanne Freeman, PO `84
- Tocqueville, pp. 174-179, 189-203, 513-524.
- J.D. Rackey and Lily Kincannon, "Parties and Electoral Reform: Insights from Political Operatives," Bipartisan Policy Center, July 13, 2026.
Nov 16, 18: Protest and Social Movements
"What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation." -- Eric Hoffer
- Martin Luther King, "Letter from Birmingham Jail," https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
- Alinsky, pp. xiii-97, 125-164.
TAKE-HOME FINAL ASSIGNED BY NOV 23,
DUE IN CANVAS DECEMBER 11.
Nov 23: Texas v. California
"California, the department-store state. The most of everything and the best of nothing." -- Raymond Chandler
- Miller, ch. 1-3.
Nov 30, Dec 2: Texas v. California II
"Texas is a state of mind." -- John Steinbeck
- Miller, ch. 4-10.
Dec 7, 9: Texas v. California III, Wrapup
"We must never forget that victory to the rebellion meant death to the republic. We must never forget that the loyal soldiers who rest beneath this sod flung themselves between the nation and the nation's destroyers." -- Frederick Douglass
- Miller, ch. 11-14.
