The framers never imagined Trump. The framers never imagined modern political parties. The framers never imagined the internet, or telephones, or telegraphs, or cars, or steam locamotives. The framers never imagined universal suffrage or proportional representation. We can do a lot better!
They did imagine 3/5 of a person to account for property.
This is a great bit on Grant’s memoirs.
Everything has to evolve and be reformed.
I’ve been saying for a very long time we need a new constitution, if only because so many categories of people were specifically excluded from having a voice the first time around. And also, A LOT has changed in over 200 years!
We have to read beyond the 1st sentence rather than reflexively respond to that. Then your humour is obvious, not your fault.
Plastic toothpicks, competitive parasailing, Nacho flavor Combos, mouse pad cleaner, REO Speedwagon cover bands… there’s a lot they couldn’t have imagined, to be honest.
Seemingly, we have moved past caring about the framers in that sense we are now have idiots who care only about framing their political opps
the framers never even had a fucking texas double whopper
Kinda looking that way, isn’t it?
I bet they really never imagined that both SCOTUS and Congress would just surrender their power to the executive branch - really throwing a wrench into the whole ‘checks and balances’ thing.
Right. The Constitution was meant to be a living document, hence amendments. Laws must evolve as the world does. No one anticipated our current situation.
The problem is they make the damn Constitution almost unamendable.
Why should any of us care about what happened 250 years ago? We need a new constitution to contain a creature like Trump.
The Framers did contemplate Trump. It’s in the Federalist Papers. They didn’t imagine a corrupt Congress and Supreme Court who would both side with the traitor President and refuse to uphold the Constitution.
The framers never imagined the American people would be bats- -t crazy enough to vote for a multiple conviction felon as President. Clearly, they were wrong.
Many of the frames did indeed imagine universal suffrage and were abhorred by the concept.
Trump is exactly what they feared, it’s Congress rolling over that they didn’t anticipate.
True, but George Washington sure nailed the inherent problems of a 2-party system.
The framers never imagined that the voters would go along with this garbage. They didn’t think voters would be this naive or gullible. But here we are!
Not with this Constitution. Not anymore. It is fatally flawed - it was not designed to protect against bad faith internal enemies to democracy and the rule of law. We CAN do a lot better. But not with the Senate, the filibuster, a corrupt SCOTUS, the pardon power, money=speech, etc...
This is one of the rare times I’ll disagree. They definitely imagined Trump. Half the Federalist Papers are about Trump.
Likewise, the re-Founder, Lincoln, imagined Trump with prophetic clarity in his Lyceum Speech. The penultimate sentence even has a big, scary TRUMP.
An oblique indictment of Roberts and his judiciary. Prosecute them all for sedition.
Fed 68: This process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of president, will seldom12 fall to the lot of any man, who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications yeah, the EC did not work as intended at all. quite the opposite. no EC no Trump in 2016
founders.archives.gov/documents/Ha... Talents for low intrigue and the little arts of popularity may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single state; but it will require other talents and a different kind of merit to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole union
Exactly. The Framers couldn't imagine a Legislature that failed to squash a Trump in its nascent stages, they couldn't conceive of Legislators who didn't jealously guard their own power above all else.
They didn't imagine Trump enablers. They didn't imagine gaggles of so-called elites so feckless and devoid of character. They didn't imagine an electorate so detached from common sense and common purpose.
Agree
Washington’s Farewell Address is about Trump
Well, that Washington guy deserves to lose his job, whatever it is. He could even be thrown in jail or sent to Uganda.
@joshtpm.bsky.social are we close to the point of writing a new Constitution once the dictatorship falls? Our whole form of government needs an update and overhaul, beginning with the Justice system, our elections, and continuing with the disproportional power distribution of the Senate.
I loled thank you
The Federalist Papers is about the current "two-party" system.
Franklin’s speech at the close of the constitutional convention is also about Trump.
𝗣𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘁, 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘁!
I've had the song from Hamilton in my head since the campaign.
Yes, this is meant to be part of the joke, but as I’m having to explain it to everyone, it clearly is poorly constructed!
Oh sorry! 😂
No don’t apologize, lots of my fave smart people saying the same thing!
You can go back as far as Socrates. He warned that demagoguery is the greatest threat to Democracy. He saw demagoguery destroying Greek Democracy. His analogies of that time fit perfectly with Trump, Maga, and our growing Autocracy today.
But Originalism!
The founders knew. George III was way farther gone than Trump is right now.
The Founders never thought they had secured liberty for all time. As Franklin is alleged to have said, “ A republic IF you can keep it.”
It’s fairly well attested by a contemporary source: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabe...
A conservative estimate.
agree, the whole declaration of independence is about Trump
If they did they needed better rules to stop him
They just never imagined these levels of corruption
What the Founders didn’t imagine was a SCOTUS crowning a president king in exchange for making America a theocracy.
And a Republican Party determined to create and maintain a white supremacist oligarchy.
Unfortunately they didn’t do enough in the actual Constitution itself to ensure that the President was not above the law. Grifting, graft and now SCOTUS sanctioned immunity have allowed the Kleptokakistocracy that now runs the government.
This is the right of it. The framers were acutely aware of despotic power in a way we're just now beginning to experience for ourselves. As a country, we are absolutely abdicating our founding principles. As they say, "the old is new again."
They explicitly thought that the electoral college would prevent a Trumplike figure, but that vision of the EC broke down immediately.
I'd argue that Hamilton's defense of the Electoral College is explicitly so that, in the event that the population becomes so uninformed as to elect by plurality a clearly unqualified candidate, people who know better can veto that candidate Fucking obviously failed with Bush in 04 and Trump in 24
Yep. The function of every branch of the US government can be described as designed prevent something like a Trump Presidency. What we have is an unprecedented failure of expertise among the political field. From Congress, to states, to DoJ, etc, everyone has failed to do their jobs.
All enabled by a willing media.
They just never imagined other branches — and the individuals in them — so willingly conceding their own prerogatives.
Agreed.
They never imagined an entire party devoted to authoritarianism and Christo-facism.
Jefferson's 1800 letter to Congress about the dangers of Aaron Burr describes Trump so accurately you could just change the name. In fact, in 2016, I did just that. (Ignore the bad handwriting, I was scribbling on my phone with a pen the size of a toothpick)
FYI, this is from Hamilton’s letter to Harrison Gray Otis, not from Jefferson to Congress: www.gilderlehrman.org/sites/defaul...
You're right. That's what I get for posting right before I fall asleep.
Folks, this was not Jefferson (obviously). It was Hamilton writing to Congress which in turn is what helped Jefferson become President. I should know better than try to post just before falling asleep. Thanks to the poster who pointed out what was an obvious error on my part.
What they didn't imagine were parties, and certainly not parties who could get a majority in Congress and then cede all their power to the executive.
BRAVO!
Surely they expected the demagogue to be smarter and more talented. I’m always struck by the fact that the people who shook the Roman republic were Marius, Sulla, Pompeii, and Caesar. The man who has shaken the United States is Trump. At least choose someone capable.
Shit. The Declaration of Independence was about Trump.
This, he's performing every grievance they had against the crown
It’s not a good joke on my part because this was unclear, but I’m not disagreeing about that!
That makes sense. Got it.
Democracy is great and all, but idk, maybe choosing our leader using the same exact methods as we pick prom king has some flaws, especially in the era of social media, bit farms, and psychological manipulation through media. Some refinement, and guidelines might be good.
In fairness, Ben Franklin did imagine yoga pants, but he didn't tell anyone else...
The framers never imagined MAGA, a cult that goes GAGA like lemmings over despot Donnie Dollhands.
they might have imagined the cybertruck however
The Framers did imagine Trump. They never imagined a faction large enough to elect him with the Electoral College. The Federalist Papers make this clear. That said, the Founders aren't going to save us. We will save ourselves, as they did.
I hope and pray you are right.
Tbf they pretty much did imagine a corrupt and venal executive; it's really the congress becoming functionally vacant that they could not have imagined
Adams was a student of Polybius, who believed in a cycle starting with monarchy, eventually getting to democracy led to mob rule which would gender a the desire for a new monarch
Congress was supposed to be unbelievably jealous of its power. The cowardice of the legislature for the last four decades would be completely alien to the founders.
I was trying to reckon your four decades start point, realized you probably meant Iran-Contra, and felt old (I'm in my 40s)
I really meant Reagan generally, but the refusal to actually do anything about Iran Contra is a good spot to pick as the start.
indeed, if congress passes a law saying doing a specific thing is illegal, the executive proceeds to do exactly that thing, and then congress does nothing in response, it's plainly abdicating its own authority
I'm not sure if it's wrong or right to say they saw congress as remaining alert because it would be focused on slavery being legal (evidence: the concern in the Federalist Papers about "regional factions," and the clause in the constitution prohibiting banning the importation of slaves b/f 1808)
SCOTUS et al
Not sure why when Caesar won so many senators over to his cause just by personal obligation, winning a lot, cutting deals with them, or looking like the better bet to ensure their safety after the war. Not hard to foresee enough defectors from a democratic body to make that body unable to function.
Like several of the federalist papers are pretty much summarize directly as "under no circumstances should you let someone like Trump be president, and if by chance or misfortune you do, we have built the Constitution so you can and must then remove him immediately"
Subsequent amendments reinforced this. Section 3 of the 14th. Section 4 of the 25th.
Yeah he's basically the one thing they didn't want. Shame it didn't work out but hey, almost 250 years ain't bad.
I really do struggle with this because I agree with Max that we have a serious design problem and PROBABLY wouldn't have had Trump with a better system. But also this is a profoundly catastrophic failure of a system that was in fact one of the most stable in the world.
The frustrating thing is that our system has all the tools to oust a Trump, but we all decided it’s “not decorous” and “too partisan” to use them. Like, we impeached the guy twice. FFS.
We have a corrupt elite because we have a poorly designed system. Both had to fail to get us where we are today. The people deserve blame, but so do the institutions—even the constitution!
Right. This is correct. There IS a relatively clear and succinct constitution. And then there is the real constitution which has corporations being people or something.
Yeah to be clear, I'm not a constitutional supremacist. I do defend it a lot because I'm EXTREMELY frustrated how its text has been straight up ignored. Section 3 of the 14th amendment could not be clearer for instance. But if everyone is able to ignore it constantly, that indicates problems.
The way I would put it is I like the idea of supreme law with basic values that is relatively concise. The mechanisms within it for implementing itself are...not great.
I had to ponder your first sentence for a minute. I think I agree. The Founders weren’t shy about wanting the system to maintain rule by elites — a democracy, in a narrow sense, but always properly managed by elites. But I doubt their British butts could have imagined an elite so abysmally American.
(And no that’s not how I’d message about it, but you know what I mean)
So it's probably a good time for the 4 cabinet members that discussed invoking the 25th amendment to explain why they discussed it. Maybe mention that elder abuse comes in many forms and is a crime.
That's because they didn't foresee a two-party system which ensures one party controls at least 2/3 branches. Many of the Founders hated political parties altogether and didn't expect them to form (perhaps not realizing they were inevitable due to economies of scale). @prorepcoalition.bsky.social
The systems was designed when all branches were relatively independently minded. But party power and dynamics undermines that assumption. Having two highly powerful political parties and a winner-take-all election lead to instability.
That was my thought. When they wrote “ambition must be made to counteract ambition”, they assumed (or hoped?) that anyone ambitious enough to get himself elected to the Congress wouldn’t then treat the president as an absolute monarch. It’s a complete breakdown of the system.
Sort of. The quote is more that countries can be undone by ambitious men, that political ambition is inherent, and that stability therefore needs ambition set against ambition to avoid the country collapsing into a personalist regime. And tbf it worked fairly well for a while. Not so hot these days
IMO, this is an example of a more general principle, that freedom is achieved by multiple power centres fighting to a draw. Religious freedom is achieved when no single religion or sect has the power to dominate all others.
to get the thing ratified the proponents of the constitution had to explicitly promise a bill of rights including the first amendment with its religion clauses!
Right, the assumption is that the ambitious men in the Congress would jealously guard their power, not cede it to a tinpot monarch. The whole point of the U.S. was to *not* live under a monarchy.
There’s an @ositanwanevu.com book for fixing that
And that's because they had a poor grasp of how political parities could align a controlling majority of Congress to see their desires accomplished through the President. The core flaw of the Constitution is not anticipating the inevitable existence and behavior of political parties.
No of course. My joke is that the “the founders never could have imagined” bit really doesn’t stop at the supplication of Congress. They couldn’t imagine mass society. No one in the modern world would design a constitution the same way, because that’s not how the world works anymore.
On that, for sure, 100%
I agree with all of this and just want to add that they all died before toilet paper was a thing
Well... For them, perhaps. The Chinese had been using toilet paper from the 6th century on... (I know... There's always that one guy, and this time it's me. Sorry!)
I’m glad Doug is in this thread because I was going to make a joke about them not imagining toothpaste but then other people said smart things about federalism
They might recognize stuff like toothpaste, but couldn’t imagine what a fluoride ion was.
I heard Alito didn’t wipe his bum bc TP wasn’t originalist enough
One day the internet is going to learn that George Washington’s teeth were not wooden and people are going to lose their minds
Wait till they hear he wasn’t the first President
Also he did at some points tell a lie
Yeah, about those teeth.
I’ve had people refuse to believe me about the teeth so many times so I’ll let someone else rebreak the news
When I was in sixth grade, I learned that they were made from hippopotamus ivory. I was a lot older when I learned the whole story.
Describing it as a purchase certainly counts as a lie
I introduce this fact to my students with The Oatmeal's Believe (clean version) comic. A helpful side benefit is they also learn about the backfire effect. And they seldom forget either after that.
His teeth are my favorite way to shock people at parties.
But he did cut down huge swaths of trees along with his blue ox! ...or is that something else ...
The slaves teeth?
And plus they just didn't know about a bunch of institutional design options we now have hundreds of country-years of experience with
Sort of darkly funny that every time other countries build constitutions from time to time, international scholars are consulted on ways to do it well even if it is always drafted and executed locally, and, uh, the US consults are like "not all of these ideas are winners, maybe avoid the landmines"
Americans literally wrote the post-war constitution of Japan and it's nothing like ours!
Interesting
We had our chance to constitutional eliminate left-hand driving and we blew it!
😂
This is my most charitable and reasonable version as well
We can really “rizz” up our institutions now, as the kids say
They invented presidentialism by accident, were basically forced to invent federalism, didn't realize they were creating a system necessitating something like judicial review, their version of the electoral college failed the second time it handled a contested election I mean, the list goes on
I think the framers were less surprised by judicial review emerging than we back-fill from our modern lens onto the original lens, but part of that is that what people now call is originalism is, well, a fairly modern judicial invention. But judicial review predates the revolution
Judicial review covers quite a few practices, and these days gets carelessly assimilated to judicial supremacy. The kind we have now isn't what anyone had in mind back then, and couldn't have, since you needed a tradition of written constitutionalism which Britain famously lacks
These were mostly smart guys, but they were stumbling around in the dark
It really was constitutional democracy version 1.0 and they honestly thought we would freaking fix it as we discovered problems
We did fix things until the things that needed fixing were less in the trim and more in the foundation
Wasn't it Jefferson who anticipated we should be on our 4th or 5th constitution by now at a minimum?
Thing is, we *are* on our 4th or 5th constitution if you understand constitutions correctly, as the totality of major rules structuring politics: bsky.app/profile/kjep...
We don't talk about it this way enough, but the Civil War meant the Constitution failed, full stop. Preventing civil war is the most basic task of any political arrangement, and it didn't prevent it.
I'm not sure if that's more constitutional failure or flat societal "we want evil shit" failure, because no constitution can stop a mass social movement that simply denied human rights exist and no Republic can tolerate that movement on a large scale.
...when I explained to my wife what Marbury v Madison did, she asked: why did they have to figure that out though, it seems like a predictable problem that could have been covered in the original document
This is basically it, and it is worth appreciating how much of a quantum leap they still made. The Madisonian frame of analysis is still basically correct, it asks the right questions, they just couldn't have known then all the answers we now do.
The thing I've been thinking about lately is the way that parliamentarism & multi-party politics concentrate power in legislatures, but then fracture it in ways structurally checked by mass electorates. Vastly superior to unreliable branch-based checks & balances which are subverted by parties
Yeah. I wouldn't go full Westminster as my ideal preference, but it is better about that.
Westminster ain't multiparty!
Without a robust understanding of mature mass parties, that whole paradigm of control & dividing power was unavailable
Obligatory
they hdid imagine trump. they put in many safeguards they didnt anticipate the controlled opposition of teampelosi nobody saw that coming. except those of us that watched what they did after bush/cheney. but nobody was listening
Actually, he is exactly what they revolted against. The infantile, irresponsible, narcissistic, malicious, hateful, dementia-driven psychopathy is exactly what the Founders were leaving. However, they never imagined that this new Nation would ever LET THEM COME BACK.
They imagined 🍊💩 to a tee. They failed to imagine quisling houses of Congress and Supreme Court justices.
Wow. That is so good
bsky.app/profile/equa...
If you showed them a matchbook, they’d carry you around like Ewoks and C-3PO.
I think they possibly had some steam powered molds for wooden/leaden teeth and shit.
In an age of muskets and single shot guns, the founders never imagined high capacity military-style assault weapons like the AR-15 which can kill multiple people in seconds.
The framers never imagined AR-15s in the hands of unregulated citizens.
you realize every right you have has been the responsibility of someone with a gun to guarantee it for you? As that seems to be ending, you are going to have to do it for yourself or other unregulated citizens. Think about it some.
Oh I have thought about it. You might do the same.
Yes, the "well-regulated" militia part the "guns for everyone" people studiously ignore. Plus the so-called originalists on the Court studiously ignore the meaning at the time of "bear arms" (that is, an organised militia or army by the sovereign power).
I'm describing something far more basic, rights and responsibilities. If you have a right someone has a responsibility. Extrapolate from there.
The founders imagined every twenty years or so that we would tear down the government and redo it. Its long overdue
They never imagined all 3 branches being evil, corrupt, amoral, and criminal at the highest levels all at the same fucking time.
Sure they did, what they couldn't imagine was the Internet, even the Information Age as a whole Someone like Trump can only become a dictator because the memetic virus of propaganda spreads at the speed of light.
The framers absolutely imagined someone like trump, which is why they wrote in checks and balances/separation of powers. What they *didn't expect was a Congress and Court to capitulate and kneel, thereby ultimately reinterpreting for a monarchy/fascist and eliminating the separation of powers.
Honestly, they didn’t even imagine 1790s political parties.
The framers never imagined you’d still be using their constitution - seriously they thought it should be updated/replaced very couple of decades.
President Trump is making blue states safer despite the resistance of the violent political party.
They maybe didn't imagine modern communications or transportation. But they did imagine Trump. They knew that throughout history humans have had feckless, cruel kings and dictators.
The framers did imagine that the Constitution would be a living document that would evolve to meet the needs of a changing country, which is why originalism is bogus.
Or Chaco Tacos (RIP)
The framers never imagined the American electorate could be so fucking stupid. That's the long and the short of it, I think.
Oh they definitely did. That’s the reason they didn’t initially have direct election of senators and saddled us with the electoral college.
They needed to spend more time imagining the lazy, nonreading, idiotic American voter and a spineless, useless, lickspittle, cowardly Congress.
They also didn’t imagine slavery ending, Blacks voting and women voting. But they knew times would change and provided for the Constitution to be amended. What they didn’t imagine is Congress wouldn’t do its job and so many people would put party over country.
The framers did not anticipate SO MUCH PROGRESS, so fast. Their system of government is no longer apply to the Nuevo Mundo. More clauses are needed to prevent such an EARTHQUAKE TAKEOVER BY ONE PERSON in the far away future. I hope the good people among us will anticipate variants consequences…
We should have stopped telling ourselves we are the pinnacle of Democracy a long time ago. There are countries with more comprehensive constitutions that were based on the US out there. Time for a rewrite.
Fun fact, steam engines do in fact pre-date the USA. The first engine was shipped from Britain to New Jersey in 1753 for the purpose of pumping water out of a flooded mine.
All true, but that's the case for re-writing the entire constitution from scratch.
Political philosophers have been warning about “Trump” since the day the Greeks created the “polis”. We cannot use the excuse that we weren’t warned. The sum total of all political education since the dawn of time can be summed up as: beware of demagogues named Trump (or Adolf).
I’m convinced the framers would tell us today that we’re morons that need to evolve with the times. It kinda goes without saying. I imagine they wouldn’t have been cool with us keeping our current gun laws after kids are slaughtered in school.
The framers never imagined imagined a war criminal as an accepted ally. The framers never imagined we'd sanctioned the ICC prosecutors twice for adjudicating Netanyahu.
Indeed. Once the heads roll the and blood is dry we can begin to organize our society in a new way.
Depends whose blood is drying.
They most definitely imagined trump. Maybe not the other things, but see the Federalist Papers. They knew human behavior. That is why they did their best to put in checks and balances. Problem is, they did not imagine that Congress and the Supreme Court would be complicit in the tyrant's takeover.
The framers were clear on the requirements for a virtuous citizenry. www.usconstitution.net/founders-vis...
I feel like they should’ve imagined a dictator fascist being president. Dropped the ball
But why? If I were establishing a country the FIRST THING I would have done was anticipate Trump!
The funny thing is, I think they DID imagine him. They knew exactly the danger we currently face. They failed to put together a system that is immune, but reading the Federalist papers, I don't think they would be surprised in the least.
Read George Washington’s farewell speech. He definitely talks about a Trump, it just took 250 years to happen.
What the framers did imagine was that the country would one day become something they couldn't possibly imagine.
The framers absolutely imagined someone like Trump.
Read Hamilton in 1800 and tell me they didn't imagine Trump. This might as well have been written about Trump today. "Mr Trump loves nothing but himself - thinks of nothing but his own aggrandizement, and will be content with nothing short of permanent power in his own hands." (Edited for 2016)
Some of the framers actually did foresee political parties and warned of their dangers but weren’t able to get the support to outlaw them. It was considered a “later issue” that they never circled back to.
Hamilton did.
Disagree, in that the framers envisioned the possibility of an out-of-control executive. They never imagined a legislature that would countenance such a person, nor did they foresee a Supreme Court that would hand the President the keys to autocracy.
Sorry...did not pick up the sarcasm font.
Poe's Law, man. Whatcha gonna do?
The framers never quite imagined Trump, but about 80% of the things they wrote about George III and a fair few hypothetical cases in the Federalist Papers apply to him pretty exactly In their defense, a casino owner losing so consistently would have been difficult to predict
Thomas Jefferson saw it coming.
Whatever you do, don't say "the framers never imagined the machinegun", or some asshole will show up in your mentions with tales of how surely Ben Franklin must have been aware of the Puckle Gun ergo the Second Amendment means everyone should have an Uzi.
The "framers" never imagined that slavery would end, they never imagined civil rights, or women's rights. The "framers" were misogynistic, racist pieces of garbage who enslaved people and killed Black and Indigenous Americans. Fuck all of them.
I forgot to also mention the "framers" raped men, women, and children. Take all their statues down.
You can tell this is a really good joke because I’m having to explain it so much, but: yes I know the framers were quite concerned about demagogues, and some were concerned about parties. The joke is supposed to suggest that maybe what they thought isn’t the most important thing in the world.
Jokes on Bluesky
As an outsider to the US, it's always been a little wild to me how often people go, "oh but what did this rich white slave owning dude from 250 years ago think, because that's what's most important to me!"
Which framer ya think could have conceptualized the telegram?
Franklin
*playing the glass armonica like a whimsical Phantom of the Opera* Well it seems familiar a concept to me.
Gotta be right
