New Hampshire, with a population of 1,359,711, is smaller than forty-one other American states. Manchester is its largest city, with a population of 111,196. It would be the thirteenth-largest city in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, smaller than Denton but larger than Richardson.
And yet, all eyes today are on this state after yesterday’s Democratic Party primary won by Bernie Sanders. Although Pete Buttigieg finished a close second and Amy Klobuchar surged to third place, today’s New York Times is calling Sanders “the new front-runner of the 2020 Democratic primary.”
However, some caveats are worth noting.
Since 1976, only five of the nine Democratic candidates who won in New Hampshire eventually won their party’s nomination. And only one (Jimmy Carter) went on to become president. However, no modern Democrat has won the party’s nomination without finishing first or second in the state.
Whatever the future significance of yesterday’s primary, one lesson is that the anti-Sanders vote splintered, leading to his victory. Democrats who consider Bernie Sanders unelectable are going to have to find a way to consolidate around candidates who were not their first choices.
Such compromise, however, is at the heart of American democracy. Here we can learn a surprising lesson from history with strategic significance for Christians today.
The surprising sources of our republic
What source did the writers of the Constitution quote more than any other? The Bible. Who came in second? Charles de Montesquieu (1689–1755).
Historian William Federer notes that the French political philosopher was a favorite of Thomas Jefferson (who translated a commentary on his thought from the French). His ideas about governance were formative for Jefferson and others who formed our nation.
Montesquieu divided governments into three categories: republics, which rely on moral virtue; monarchs, which rely on honor and shame;…
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