Thomas Paine's 'Common Sense' at 250: A Warning for 2026 America
Robert S. McElvaine
“Here is idolatry even without a mask: And he who can calmly hear and digest such doctrine, hath forfeited his claim to rationality an apostate from the order of manhood and ought to be considered as one who hath not only given up the proper dignity of man, but sunk himself beneath the rank of animals, and contemptibly crawls through the world like a worm.”
This seemingly perfect description of “Republican” Donald Trump acolytes in his regime and Congress in 2026 was written two-and-a-half centuries ago by Thomas Paine.
Two-hundred-and-fifty years ago last week, a pamphlet written by “an ENGLISHMAN” (Thomas Paine) ignited the people of the British colonies along the Atlantic in North America, from Maine (then a part of Massachusetts) to Georgia to support declaring independence.
Over its first six months, 150,000 copies of Common Sense spread around the colonies. That was about six percent of the population, which would be about 20 million copies today.
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