"Harnessing the Power of Populist Grievance"

"It didn't matter how badly things went in Philadelphia under Rizzo. His people wanted him because of his hatred and corruption and the chaos that followed him. And they loved him so much that, even after history had left them behind, they wanted his statue across from City Hall and were willing to fight to keep it there.

Jonathan V. Last at The Bulwark calls Frank Rizzo "The First Trump."

And Last asks, "What If Trump Is Right About America?"

"Untouched–and, Thankfully, Well-Preserved–for Nearly 50 Years"

"'While these recordings capture a significant moment in history, they are just as relevant and powerful now as when they were originally recorded,' Newman said. 'We are grateful to Drexel and MAD Dragon for their partnership in helping these recordings see the light of day in Joe Jefferson's lifetime and honored that he entrusted us with preserving the legacy of the project.'"

Daniel Kreps at Rolling Stone tells the story of the Nat Turner Rebellion.

"There Was No Slaveholders' Ploy"

"A good way to summarize what actually happened inside the convention is to recall the place of slavery in the different plans that the convention considered about electing the president.  The delegates weighed three options: the president would be selected by direct popular vote, by Congress, or by electors who would be chosen either by the people or the state legislatures. Direct election failed, but not because it was intolerable to the slaveholders, as Amar maintains. It failed because it enjoyed little support in the convention, for reasons that had nothing to do with slavery. The real choice for the framers was between the congressional method and the electoral method. Both methods gave the slave states an extra measure of power in selecting the president; so once direct election was scrapped, the convention was bound to grant the slave states some sort of bonus. But this was because the great majority of the convention did not trust in the people at large to choose the president." 

Sean Wilentz at History News Network writes that "like most of my fellow American historians, I have been wrong about slavery and the Electoral College."

"Historians Find Evidence Of Nation's Founding Lobbyists' Campaign To Influence Constitution"

"Evidence also suggests that the original lobbyists were skilled in dampening opposition to their clients' agendas. Recovered ledgers revealed that an early attempt at universal healthcare—via a welfare clause in Article IV—was voted down after an advocate for the Apothecaries Guild procured front-row duel tickets for the entire Pennsylvania delegation.According to witness accounts of the time, the Constitution's authors were regularly spotted in the colonies' most exclusive taverns, where a different member of the wax or beaver pelt lobbies would cover their exorbitant three-figure tabs and lavish them with exquisite silk garments and spices from beyond the Orient. Preserved woodcuts depict a number of Founding Fathers relaxing on the palm-lined beaches of Hispaniola as they and their families enjoyed luxury accommodations courtesy of the sugarcane industry."

From The Onion.

"Our Misguided Tendency to Blindly Worship the Constitution"

"Pennsylvania physician Benjamin Rush was less diplomatic. 'What is the present moral character of the citizens of the United States?' he asked during the ratification controversy. 'I need not describe it…. Nothing but a vigorous and efficient government can prevent their degenerating into savages.' 'Democracy,' he insisted, 'is the devil's own government.' By the late-1780s it had become conventional wisdom among political elites that, as Elbridge Gerry put it, 'the evils we experience flow from an excess of democracy.' The Constitution was designed to reverse the democratic trajectory of American politics.
"The problem with the economic interpretation, however, is that it tends to conflate elitism with selfishness."

Matthew C. Simpson at The New Republic reviews Michael J. Klarman's The Framers' Coup: The Making of the United States Constitution.

"Democrats Have Claimed the Mantle of 'Normal' America"

"It has become commonplace to say that the Democrats presented an uplifting view of the United States to contrast with the darkness of the last week’s Republican National Convention. It is tempting, even, to invoke Ronald Reagan's 'Morning in America,' especially since Clinton used the phrase in her speech. But pay attention to the tenor of this optimism, to the rhythms of its expression. It isn't the self-satisfaction of Reagan, champion of the status quo. It is hard-won hope, an optimism born of struggle. It's the 'Mothers of the Movement,' whose grief fuels hopeful activism. 'We're going to keep telling our children's stories and urging you to say their names,' said Lucia McBath, mother of Jordan Davis, who was slain in 2012. 'We're going to keep building a future where police officers and communities of color work together in mutual respect to keep children, like Jordan, safe.' It's the difference between Reagan’s eternal lights 'in this springtime of hope' and Maya Angelou's 'still I rise,' one of the refrains of this week.

"This progressive patriotism wasn't just a cudgel to use on Donald Trump, whose solipsism and fearmongering have exposed him to a Democratic attack on the basis of values and temperament. It was part of the bedrock of the argument against Trump and Trumpism—that he and his cause were fundamentally un-American, that electing him would deal an irreparable blow to the bonds of multicultural democracy."

Jamelle Bouie in Slate reacts to the Democratic National Convention.

DNC, Day Three

Bustle provides transcripts of Joe Biden's, Michael Bloomberg's, Tim Kaine's, and Barack Obama's speeches at the Democratic National Convention.

Eric Levitz at New York reacts to President Obama's speech.

"Biden Busted In DNC Parking Lot Selling Bootleg 'I'm With Her' T-Shirts"

"'Those cops cost me a good chunk of change when they yanked my merch, but luckily I've got an extra box of these babies stashed in the trunk of my Zam,' said Biden, who acknowledged the printing was a bit off-center on his knock-off shirts and that he had 'completely blanked' on what Clinton’s logo looked like, but repeatedly insisted the unauthorized apparel was 'pretty damn close.'"

From The Onion.

Additionally...
"Biden Chokes Up While Describing Hardworking Americans Who Can Only Afford Shitty Ditch Weed"

And finally...
"Biden Regales DNC With Story Of '80s Girl Band Vixen Breaking Hard Rock’s Glass Ceiling"

DNC, Day One

Bustle provides transcripts of Cory Booker's, Michelle Obama's, Elizabeth Warren's, and Bernie Sanders's speeches at the Democratic National Convention.

Posh-ification

"It turns out that the old complaint against gentrification, that it drives out minorities, is far too simplistic. Instead, we should be worrying about a different concern: It hasn’t built the diversity that Jacobsian urbanists envisioned, and that cities need. Diversity, in all its forms, is the urban advantage; it’s what lured a suburb-raised generation to 19^th century rowhouses in the first place. After all these years of trying to revive their old neighborhoods, what a shame if it turns out that American cities have birthed a new kind of monotony."





Inga Saffron in The New Republic ponders urban neighborhood changes.

American Phantom Shadows Band

The New York Times publishes obits for television personality Dick Clark, actors William Finley and Jonathan Frid, musicians Levon Helm and Greg Ham, guitar teacher Bert Weedon, and Nixon aide Charles W. Colson.

It's Time to Get Down

"One night in summer 1973, P.I.R. showcased the Philadelphia sound for 1,500 of music's movers and shakers at a CBS Records convention. That night became legendary and luckily for us it was recorded, although somehow it took decades before the recording was made public."

Rhetta Akamatsu in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reviews the new album Golden Gate Groove: The Sound of Philadelphia Live in San Francisco 1973.

"A Struggle, and Not a Simple Heroic Legacy"

"The great payoff of the story occurs only as Nash (who knows old Philadelphia as well as the great English historian Richard Cobb knew Revolutionary Paris) finally traces the modern movement of the bell from a quiet out-of-the-way plaza near Benjamin Franklin’s house to its new resting place between Independence Hall and the National Constitution Center. Its new home at Sixth and Market Streets was not some miscellaneous urban lot: it adjoins the space where a house was successively inhabited by two prominent Philadelphia slave-owners, Mayor William Masters and William Penn’s grandson Richard, and then by British general Sir William Howe, and the American Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris. When the national government returned to Philadelphia late in 1790, Morris leased the house to President George Washington, so it became the executive mansion—and the place where he employed a significant contingent of indentured servants and slaves (some his own, others belonging to Martha), while worrying that the latter would take advantage of Pennsylvania’s law allowing freedom to slaves after six months’ residence.
"The site was thus intimately associated with the history of American slavery as well as American liberty—and with all the complexity and the moral discomfort that most historians (other than Lynne Cheney, who is now writing a biography of James Madison) believe is inevitable if our history is to be properly understood and rightly taught."

In The New Republic, Jack Rakove reviews Gary B. Nash's The Liberty Bell.

Love T.K.O.

"Earlier, Huff reminisced during an interview aired on WDAS-FM about Pendergrass' first solo performance, which was at a club in California.
"'That night I saw the coming of a superstar,' Huff said. 'When Teddy walked out on the stage, he didn't even open his mouth and the place went crazy with screaming females. He was just so dynamic, and when he started singing, he just blew them away.'"

Albert Stumm in the Philadelphia Daily News reports the death of Teddy Pendergrass.

Over-the-Counter Culture

"It opened his eyes to everything that was phony and uptight and unjust in the world--and made him want to change the world. And there is a part of him that believes he has done just that in his own small way. But as the hippie party of the '60s devolved into the post-Vietnam hangover of the '70s, it must have occurred to him that idealism--like the length of your hair or the cut of your clothes or rebellion itself--was nothing more than fashion. And fashion is a commodity to be bought and sold for a profit."

Jonathan Valania in a 2003 Philadelphia Weekly article profiles the founder of Urban Outfitters, Richard Hayne.