The Public Square® · The American Policy Roundtable

TPS 60: The "New" Citizenship Test

·56 min·3 clips

Failed test on C-SPAN bus

The pop quiz arrives early. Wayne Shepherd opens the table with Dave Zanotti, Rob Walgate, Melanie Elsie, Jeff Sanders, and producer Alan C. Duncan as a new citizenship test enters the conversation. Wayne is not thrilled about surprise testing. Dave connects the moment to the Atlantic's November piece in the Declaration 250 conversation, then brings in the Washington Post's new test. The question gets personal fast: could an American pass a test meant for entry into citizenship, and what would the score really prove? The table follows that question into American historical sites. Yorktown, Jamestown, Williamsburg, Plymouth, and Gettysburg come up as places where memory has dirt under it. This is not plain nostalgia. Being where history happened can puncture the easy confidence that comes from half-remembered textbook facts. Bastogne then gives the conversation a harder edge. Jeff uses the Battle of the Bulge as a measure for suffering: Christmas cold, encirclement, hunger, shattered trees, and Patton's men still too far away. The point lands with a wry bite. If something today is "not Bastogne," maybe the complaint needs to shrink a little. Plattsburgh brings the mood back down. A possible test answer sends them chasing memory and Google, and the uncertainty becomes part joke, part critique of civic quizzes. They also push back on "American Revolution," preferring "war for independence" as the cleaner frame. By the end, Christmas broadens the discussion from civic memory to biblical formation, Jewish roots, Christ's coming, and blessing in America.

As heard by us

A citizenship quiz opens into a conversation about memory, American roots, and faith.

The Public Square takes a Washington Post citizenship-test piece and opens it into a wider discussion of what Americans are supposed to know, remember, and carry forward.

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Why you'd press play

If you want a citizenship quiz that turns into a history lesson, start here.

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