Here’s something you should think about.

We think of the Founding Fathers as men of the people who wanted all people to have an equal say in how their government was run. Freedom! Democracy! Everyone has a voice and a choice!

This is a beautiful fiction. And that is all it is – a fiction.

They were white Europeans who owned land. That is to say, in the British system they were at least the lesser landed gentry. Hereditary landowners whose land was a fief.

(Yes, even the guys in the north.)

And I’m not just talking about the slavery issue. Yes, it was a damn big problem, and the dirt about it is all over our Constitution (anyone know the three-fifths rule?), but that’s not the only problem it created.

As white Europeans with land ownership, they had a particular cultural worldview, namely:

They believed that in the new nation they had built, only white, land-owning Europeans would run for political office.

Only. Landed. European. White. Men.

They also had what so many fantasy novels like to attribute to their noble and gentle characters: Noblesse oblige. This means the obligation of the “greater” to care for, supervise and monitor the well-being of the “lesser”.

Their system was based on the assumption that since white Europeans with land ownership would be running the country, their noble/gentle feelings would lead them to always do the right thing for the whole country. And therefore we didn’t need pesky things like written codes of ethics or term limits for judges or anything like that. God forbid! They knew what was the right thing to do, and so, Naturally Your arguments would relate to how to achieve it. And Naturally Their descendants would understand this, because Naturally Their descendants would also be white European landowners who shared the same sentiments as they did. And so Naturally The nation would prosper under the system they created.

Yes, no. Despite all their foresighted thinking, they overlooked this important fact: Culture is changing. They were changing the culture itself, even if they didn’t realize it. The cultural sensibilities of the white European peasant – and indeed the white European peasant himself! – would not remain culturally long in this world. but they didn’t noticeand so they failed to prepare the nation for this change. They made the mistake that Stephen King identifies as a mistake made by bank presidents and high school students: what is now is forever.

The first three American presidential elections were conducted under the assumption that the winner would be president and the runner-up would be vice president! Naturally these two would get along even if they were competing for the same office because the sensibilities of the noble/gentle, white, land-owning European male would override any animosity they might feel for each other. After the election of 1800, they realized that this was not a good idea in practice, and they passed the 12th Amendment, which stated, “The President and Vice President shall henceforth be on the same ballot together.”

But if you look at the founding documents of the United States, you see that this assumption of landed gentry shines through everywhere. The assumption that the “greaters” would rule over the “lesser” and that their noble attitude would prevent the shitshows we’ve been witnessing since at least 2016 is pervasive. Washington naively believed that we needed to avoid partisanship and political parties entirely – and we see how well that worked, don’t we? (It didn’t.)

Our current system is still built on the belief that nobility is the duty that guides the hands of the people in our federal offices, our legislatures, our judgeships, and the belief that the norms of nobility prevail even without legal, written standards and requirements that spell out exactly what those norms require of those people. And we have seen what happens when the norms are simply assumed. We are living in 2016. We are living in four years of a malevolent tyrant driving the country to ruin.

This system urgently needs to be overhauled.

I don’t think the time is right for a second constitutional convention because this country has become so partisan. But I will say it was naive, over-optimistic, and downright foolhardy of the Founding Fathers to think that the cultural sensibilities of white landowners from Europe would hold this country together in times of pressure and crisis. And we need to be aware of that, because that’s a big damn problem, folks.