Jurassic Founding Fathers: What if The Founders Returned for America’s 250th Birthday—Would they be happy?
Picture the Founders showing up for the country’s 250th birthday party, expecting cake and fireworks, only to walk into a house on fire.
That is the premise of 76 Spirits, a timely, provocative, and imaginative project that reintroduces Franklin, Paine, Washington, Abigail Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and others as reconstituted “Spirits” who write and argue in their own voices about today’s events. Their message arrives right on time for America’s semiquincentennial, and they are, to put it politely, not thrilled with what we have done with the place.
The centerpiece of the project is a serialized work titled Project 1776: The Battle to Save the Republic, built around a simple but bracing claim: the fight the Founders won in 1776 is the same fight America faces now. Only the weapons have changed.
According to Harvey, the threat today is concentrated power, manufactured division, and a public increasingly unable to read, reason, debate, and think for itself. The remedy is not blind partisanship, but the Founders’ own method: an informed citizenry capable of self-government.
Paul Harvey brings the perspective of a writer, retired school teacher, and administrator to one of the most urgent questions of the 250th anniversary: Can a republic survive if its people no longer understand what a republic is?
This project is cross-partisan by design and nonpartisan in the truest constitutional sense. It is for the Constitution, and against anyone, left or right, who would trade liberty for power. Harvey also takes a clear and practical position on artificial intelligence: technology should help people think, not think for them.
Paul Harvey makes a lively and thoughtful guest on the Founding, the Constitution, the collapse of civic literacy, religious liberty, artificial intelligence, and why America’s 250th birthday is exactly the right moment to remember what self-government actually requires.
Interview Angles
America at 250: Why the semi quincentennial should be more than fireworks, flags, and nostalgia.
The Founders as “Spirits”: How Franklin, Paine, Washington, Abigail Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and others can speak into today’s national crisis.
The Same Battle as 1776: Why concentrated power and manufactured division remain the central threats to liberty.
Civic Literacy Collapse: Why so many Americans cannot explain the Constitution, the branches of government, or the meaning of self-government.
A Cross-Partisan Constitutional Message: Why the project challenges the left and the right when either side sacrifices principle for power.
AI and Thinking: Why artificial intelligence should be a tool for sharpening thought, not replacing it.
Religious Liberty: Why freedom of conscience remains essential to the American experiment.
Sample Interview Questions
- Let’s get the fun one out of the way first: how exactly did the Founders come back, and do you actually believe in these Spirits, or is keeping that a mystery part of the point?
- The Spirits supposedly showed up for America’s 250th birthday party and were not happy with what they found. What, in their view, have we done with the place?
- You argue we are fighting the same battle as 1776 with different weapons. What are the weapons now, and is it really as serious as the Revolution was?
- Surveys keep finding that many Americans could not pass the citizenship test. Why has civic literacy fallen so far, and what does your project do about it?
- You take an unusual position on artificial intelligence, that it should help people think rather than think for them. What do you mean, and why should parents and teachers care?
- You insist this is cross-partisan, that the real enemy is concentrated power and manufactured division on either side. How do you keep a project like this from becoming just another team sport?
- Which Founder would be most shocked by modern America, and which one might have seen this coming?
- If George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abigail Adams, or Thomas Paine could address Americans directly before the 250th anniversary, what would they say?
- As a retired educator, what concerns you most about what young people are not being taught about the country?
- Where can people read 76 Spirits and follow Project 1776: The Battle to Save the Republic?
About Paul Harvey
Paul Harvey is a writer and retired school teacher and administrator. He is the founder of 76 Spirits, a creative civic-literacy project that reimagines America’s Founders speaking directly into the crises of modern America. His serialized work, Project 1776: The Battle to Save the Republic, challenges Americans to recover the habits of reading, reasoning, debate, constitutional understanding, and self-government that made the republic possible in the first place.
CONTACT: Jerry McGlothlin 919-437-0001 jerry@specialguests.com or Todd Baumann 512-966-0983 todd@specialguests.com
