The fact that we just left it up to them to recuse themselves is a major unchecked flaw.
Our founding morons were the most naive idiots in existence… Sure they lived in a different time, but how could you possibly look back at any time in history and say “it’s ok only moral people get positions of power so we’ll play by the honor system.”
I don’t think anyone born back then could’ve forseen the sheer stupidity that is MAGA
The original dictator preceeded the existence of the US and refused to recuse himself once given power.
Their shortedsightedness is not excusable.
US citizens give way WAY too much credit to their founders. Calling them “founding fathers” almost sounds like it’s a religion. I’m sure they were smart guys in their time, but they too were flawed and made a shit tonne of mistakes, like everybody else. Just fix those mistakes already.
It’s totally cringe when people call those slavers their daddies. Definitely a symptom of a much larger, wacko cult.
They were fans of Montesquieu, but they also thought the VP should be the runner up in the election and that self interest would prevent one group from attaining too much power
In this case for example: the judge would want to avoid being labeled as partial because he would ruin his family name and lose his profession
This is curiously noteworthy in The Federalist Papers. Hamilton puts a lot of faith in the human conscience all the while pointing out that if men were angels we would need no government noting that we do need checks and balances.
The Electoral College is a dead giveaway that they didn’t trust the public to self-govern, and hence there needed to be back doors where gentlemen (men of means) could override the system should someone like Jimmy Carter get elected.
They had faith that people who got to power would use it in good faith (and get there in good faith) while or after having fought a war with a power that they believed wasn’t being used in good faith.
I just wonder how much longer this system can hold up for. It’s got different parts that conflict with itself but different people value different parts of it to the point that getting rid of any of it is going to be, ah, a bit rough.
Because they were the progressive ideologues of their day.
And were also often stymied from giving the constitution real teeth by the big slave holding states as well, don’t forget. The right wing was doing shenanigans at the very founding of the country.
