What Would the Founding Fathers Think? US Democracy Under Fire

The article posits that America's Founding Fathers would be dismayed by the current state of US democracy, questioning how descendants could elect a president who acts like a king and allow the division of powers to be erased. It laments the perceived partisan bias in the judiciary and the "evident harassment of freedom of expression."

The piece suggests that the United States is transforming from a "promised land of freedom" into a nation dominated by its "worst instincts": racism, persecutory nativism, inexplicable pacts with enemies, and the "unpardonable betrayal of allies." While holding Republicans responsible for these historical failings, the author extends blame to Democrats, arguing they have succumbed to the "perverse political infantilism of woke culture."

According to the article, many young, privileged university students have forgotten the legitimate social and economic causes historically championed by the Democratic Party. Instead, they focus on a militant exaltation of identity, sexual, racial, linguistic, tribal, national, religious, which "reeks of vengeance and hatred." This, the author contends, explains the resurgence of anti-Semitism among some.

The piece criticizes "progressives" who, like New York's mayor, proclaim themselves champions of socialism while disregarding the "bloody failure" of the USSR, China, and Cuba, which resulted in tens of millions of lives lost. It asserts that these figures represent a push towards the "dissolution of the American Union" through "corrosive and brutal fanaticism," described as "theological."

Despite this "lamentable and unprecedented polarization," the article reminds readers of the West's debt to the Founding Fathers, whose inspiration influenced the French Revolution's emphasis on human rights and the constitutional aspirations of Latin American independence movements. It warns against both forms of absolute power: charismatic (concentrated in one person) and cultural/social (a collective delusion). The author concludes that if Republicans and Democrats isolate their respective fanatical wings, they can return to the path of civility, tolerance, dialogue, compromise, and responsibility laid out by their founders.