A new documentary on the vice presidency gives a fresh perspective on the complications of American governance. //

No constitutional structure can know or predict every possible scenario that leads down the road of autocracy and anarchy. For this reason, Ben Franklin reportedly told a passerby at the end of the Constitutional Convention that the delegates had created “a republic, if you can keep it.” It falls on all of us — each successive generation of Americans — to rise to Franklin’s challenge. //

“The American Vice President” is available on PBS stations (check your local listings) and can be streamed online and via the PBS app.