It just occurred to me that France is on its Fifth Republic and America is still on its first. When I think about recent events in a larger historical context, I suppose the surprise isn’t that we’re rocketing towards authoritarianism, it’s that it took 250 years for it to happen.

The experiment of America’s democracy was to test whether it could be organized and implemented in such a way that it would not degenerate into the tyranny of absolutism, without the power to save the people from oppression, when tyranny was found in the person of a single orange despot.

The first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one. The experiment of a government by the people, for the people; a government of liberty regulated by law; a government which led to the development of history’s largest economy, strongest military, and history’s greatest advancements in medicine, science, music, literature, art, and technology…has failed.

Although it seems counterintuitive, moving forward does not require that we continue to vote for wealthy, white, Democrat septuagenarians; That would only exacerbate the problem. Our chosen leaders are no longer instructed by the wisdom and experience stored in the Library of Congress, they are instructed only by greed and status; the kind of status that requires a zero-sum game be played, such that in order for them to rise, everyone else must fall. Moving forward requires a careful reexamination of the past 250 years and all the events and people that has brought us to now.

We should begin with the study of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton (the man, not to be confused with the musical). Hamilton was only twenty-one years old at the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Madison was twenty-five, Jefferson was thirty-three, and Washington was forty-four (the same age as Ben Affleck when he played Batman). I highlight this point because wisdom is not a function of age. Thus, we should seek out the reasoning behind the basic principles of free government that were embodied in the young authors of the Constitution. We should also seek out the mistakes committed by our progenitors. The mission is simple, guided by our love of our country, we should seek to improve upon what came before us for the future welfare of all mankind.

Let us examine the characteristics of the people, of all races and conditions, their social and religious sentiments, their education and tastes; their industries, their commerce, their local governments, their passions and prejudices, and their ethics and art; leaving nothing unnoticed that might afford an argument to prove that we can do better for our children and their children.
Finally, we must examine what the founding fathers did not foresee. Political equality is not a panacea for the evils of humanity. Love of country can be replaced by love of party and the violence of party spirit can replace the judgment of the wise, who are now subordinates to the prejudices of the ignorant.

Equality of conditions no longer exists. The Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v Federal Election Commission has allowed the influence of money to take over State affairs. The transactions of business are now the road to power, and the financier has risen to a station of political influence. These conditions exist because citizens stopped participating in “Local Self-Government.” Independence from general control, except for the general welfare of all citizens, is the root and origin of all free republics. It is the antagonist of all political movements that threaten the rights of minorities. It is the public opinion formed in the independent expressions of towns and other small civil districts that is the real basis of free government. And it is the enemy of the most dangerous evil, the corruption of the ballot-box, from which the greatest troubles in our nation’s history are about to arise.