Ken Burns: We Face Our Nation’s Fourth Great Crisis since the Revolution

Acclaimed Historian and Filmaker Ken Burns

No person is better able to appraise the situation in which our country finds itself than Ken Burns, the acclaimed filmmaker who has written about every significant challenge in American history. 

He has just finished a major series on the American Revolution, and as such, he has been traveling through the country talking to Americans as he presents his research to our citizens. What he realizes is that the U.S. is at a crossroads and in one of the greatest crises in history, albeit no one as vital as the three other great ones. 

In an Op-Ed on PBS, he explained those concerns,

There have been three great crises in American history: the Civil War, perhaps the defining event in our history after the Revolution itself, the Great Depression and World War II. These events tested our republic and our resolve in fundamental ways, but the center always held — elections took place, there was a peaceful transfer of power and the judiciary was still independent. Our core democratic institutions remained fundamentally strong, respected by the public and our leaders alike. The guardrails of our democracy held and were even strengthened as we emerged from each.

As we go to the polls today in this most consequential of midterm elections, we face our country’s fourth great crisis. 

Ken Burns, Public Broadcasting Service, Nov. 3, 2026

His basic analysis that we have survived and have actually emerged as strong than before is a concern today. We are not set in a major war within the country, but we have major problems. What is a major concern for him right now is that the basic structural devices that have been designed for major problems are not functioning well today. 

Founders would be very concerned

Some of the major questions that Burns has encountered today are basic and problematic. Here is his response,

Can a country as divided as ours survive? What might our founders think of us today?

I think the founders would be hugely disappointed that so many members of the legislative branch have ceded so much power to the executive branch, which has filled that vacuum with corruption and assaults on the rule of law, even undermining the fundamental right to vote. 

Ken Burns, Public Broadcasting Service, Nov. 3, 2026

His concern about the weakness of the legislative branch is well founded. This past record of the House of Representatives is woeful, having passed the fewest number of bills than any Congress in history. That has allowed a range of corruption that has never been seen in history, even despite the rampant problems of the Watergate era. 

The fear of many Americans is that the country is drifting toward fascism, and the concern of the Founding Fathers was that the county avoid a tyrannical leader like they felt they had suffered under with King George III, which led to the revolution. Burns explained this worries of some of the leaders who attempted to design what eventually became the Constitution, 

During the Constitutional Convention in the summer of 1787, delegates understood that in the many compromises they would strike, they also had to engineer defenses against the rise of a tyrant. In a letter to James Madison, Jefferson worried that a president who lost an election might “pretend false votes” and “hold possession of the reins of government.” Alexander Hamilton was also concerned that an “unprincipled” man would “mount the hobby horse of popularity” and “throw things in confusion.” “In a government like ours,” he wrote, no one is “above the law.”

Ken Burns, Public Broadcasting Service, Nov. 3, 2026

After the horrendous actions of people on January 6, 2021, who attacked the seat of our power, led on by the president of the United States, the country did not take actions to prevent this from occurring again. In fact, Burns is worried that a repetition could occur after today’s election,

Today, nearly six years after an angry mob stormed the Capitol to overturn the results of the 2020 election, election denial is still part of the current administration’s playbook. Only four of the 13 Republican candidates in highly competitive Senate races have said that they would accept the outcome of the upcoming elections unconditionally.

It hasn’t always been that way. During Watergate, as damning evidence accumulated, members of President Richard Nixon’s own party concluded that their obligation to the Constitution was greater than their obligation to him or the G.O.P. In August 1974, Republican congressional leaders went to the White House and told Nixon that his support in Congress had collapsed. He announced his resignation the next day.

Ken Burns, Public Broadcasting Service, Nov. 3, 2026

That kind of patriotism is dead. Electing a convicted felon was a major indication that the country was on the wrong track and is why Burns has serious concerns about today’s voting. 

However, while he has major reservations about the problems we are facing today, he has not given up on the future of America,

I’m optimistic that the American people recognize that our democratic institutions and sense of decency can bring us together.

We have come back from crises before. We were more divided than we are today during the Revolution, the Civil War, Reconstruction and Vietnam. For 250 years, our country has prevailed in fits and starts, forging achievements, however imperfect, related to race and equality in American life.

But given our divisions, as we vote we must each ask ourselves: What kind of leadership will see us through the current crisis? Why do we continue to support leaders who are invested in deepening our divides, who tap into conspiracy theories to frighten the public, deny facts and, to quote Alexander Hamilton, “throw things into confusion,” so that they “may ‘ride the storm and direct the whirlwind’”?

Most midterm elections are seen as referendums on the policies of the president. This one is no different. But there’s something more fundamental at stake here, beyond policy differences. This election is about the people — who are empowered to check our chief executive — and the candidates running for Congress, who either have sworn an oath to the Constitution or hope to do so. Whether they are prepared to honor their oath should matter enormously to everyone who values the idea of us — the idea of America.

Ken Burns, Public Broadcasting Service, Nov. 3, 2026

He uses the word “values.” My concern is that so few people today have values or morality or a sense of true patriotism. It is not wearing an American flag or saying that they stand for something of value. It is demonstrating that those values will return and lead us into a promising future.