Netflix's 'American Experiment': US Founding at 250
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- The American Experiment is a five-part Netflix docuseries directed by Brian Knappenberger, released ahead of the 250th anniversary of America's founding; its first episode closes on Laura Marling's 'Devil's Spoke' and the refrain 'All of this can be broken.'
- Martin Sheen voices George Washington in re-enactment segments, while the series intersperses historian commentary with interviews featuring Al Gore, Kamala Harris, Mike Pence, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Jeff Flake, Hillary Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi.
- Mike Pence recounts his January 6 experience, explaining that watching Gore certify a contested election two decades earlier informed his decision to certify results 'against pressure from his own president': 'My only purpose was to keep my oath.'
- Knappenberger frames George Washington's farewell address warning against 'extreme factionalism' as directly relevant today, stating 'We're in a very, very partisan and divided time right now.'
- Pence calls on elected representatives to 'take back the authority and the role that the founders intended,' with Knappenberger adding that 'the power of the executive right now would be surprising to the founders.'
- Knappenberger strikes an optimistic closing note, citing 250 years of survival through crises including the Civil War and Great Depression, while conservative historian Yuval Levin argues in the series that 'the fear of losing it all is actually a source of our strength.'
Why it matters: By gathering figures from across the political spectrum — from Ted Cruz to Hillary Clinton — around a shared reflection on the nation's founding, the series delivers a rare cross-party cultural artifact during a period of intense polarization, and its explicit call for Congress to reclaim authority from the executive branch links 250-year-old constitutional debates directly to the current political moment.
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