1. The past few months have felt strangely repetitive and empty. I seem to have fallen onto a psychological cycle wherein little is done, but the same patterns repeat. I haven’t written much lately, though constantly intending to. I find myself unable to relax into any kind of work, that is, to let go of other thoughts and rest in the idea that this is what I am doing right now. I always feel like there is something else that needs to be done first.

2. As such, of course, feel there’s not a lot to say; still teaching / tutoring, starting to look for another tutoring job to shore up the income, and still trying to figure out how to stick to a schedule.

3. We’re still talking about the Federalist Papers and the debate on the Constitution in my government class, and I’m continually struck by how off both sides were in terms of what actually happened. Just the fact that neither side considers the possibility of a party system developing (at least, not in the one’s I’ve read so far, and no, Federalist No. 10 doesn’t count), or even seems aware of the dynamics of elections as contests and not civil public discussions about the best course of action. There is an awareness of the effects of self-interest, mob-mentality, and so on (the latter at least being addressed by the Presidency and Senate), but they seem to imagine that most of the potential issues are limited to men of ill-will knowingly and deliberately trying to game the system, rather than matters of people acting out of ignorance or even just the dynamics of this form of government incentivizing certain behavior.

4. By the way, the failure to predict the Party system really seems to me inexcusable given that they have the example of England staring them in the face (as well as simple logic, really; if the only way to get what you want is to form a majority, the natural reaction is to coordinate with others who have similar goals, even if that goal is simply to get elected). Again, unless I’m missing something, but it seems to me that if they did have it in mind it would have been addressed in Fed. 10.

5. Another point we discussed is how, for all their checks and balances, the President of the United States is much more powerful (practically speaking) and has much more authority over the course of government than the King of England, even at the time. George Washington could veto bills, appoint a cabinet, and back a system of monetary reform that radically altered the face of the nation. George III could only ‘advise’, hand out titles, and try to get his friends into office.

Thinking about this, I realized that of course this makes sense: the President, ordinarily, enters office with a political power-base already intact in the form of his party, who have a vested interest in coordinating with his agenda (since if he looks good, they look good). Besides which, since he’s been elected on a certain platform of promises, he’s expected to be active and doing things, moving the country in a given direction. The King, even in days when kings had actual power, didn’t have to make any promises to get into power; he’s expected only to keep the state running, not necessarily to make any kind of changes or enact a given policy.

That is to say, the President is elected specifically to exercise power and comes in with at least some influence in the legislature to help him do it, while the King exists primarily to maintain the stability of the kingdom. Naturally, therefore, the nature of the office means that Presidents tend to accrue more power than Kings.

6. My conclusion from all of this is that the Founding Fathers were not the political geniuses they’re reputed to be. Their predictions of how things would turn out and their ideas of political dynamics have largely been invalidated by subsequent history, often to a striking degree (again, their idea of how Presidents should be elected lasted all of four cycles before collapsing) and often show a striking naivete of actual societal dynamics (such as the idea that politicians will ‘become private citizens again’ when they leave office and so have incentive to do right by the people whose lot they will share, as if a former Senator or Congressman is ever likely to be in the same position as Joe van Doakes of Pennsylvania), which means that their understanding of the subject was flawed. Reading the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers, I see men consistently operating on wrong assumptions and worrying over dubious dangers while missing huge issues. That’s not getting into some of the horrible ideas that were seriously discussed at the Convention, like the idea of keeping new states in a permanently subordinate status.

Now, this isn’t to go the other extreme and just call them idiots. That’d be even further from the truth. A lot of their ideas are very on-point, the Constitution is an excellent document of its type, and their method of ratifying and implementing it showed a refreshing degree of prudence and savvy. But many Americans like to take them as near-infallible on the subject of politics and political theory, when they are far, far from it. Personally, they strike me as ‘straight-A student’ brilliant for the most part: very intelligent, but only within a narrow range that they mistake for totality.

Of course, you can say it’s easy to judge them with hindsight, but, well, that’s kind of what hindsight is there for; politics is about making predictions of how certain policies will work out, and those predictions can only be judged in hindsight. And the judgment is “worked okay, but not in the way you thought it would.”

Personally, I find that encouraging; it reminds us that it isn’t necessary to be a genius to produce good work.

7. You know, I don’t like how every Flotsam devolves into talking American political theory: it’s just that when you talk about it at all there is so much to address. Maybe I’ll make it its own feature going forward and have a day devoted to it. Not that I want this to become a political theory blog, but, well, it keeps coming up.