“Who is to blame for the election of Donald Trump?” It’s a question that has been asked more than a few times since November. We’re all familiar with the answers that have been given: James Comey, the electoral college, the DNC’s leaked—not hacked—emails, the characteristically shameful performance of the mainstream media in its focus on personalities rather than substance, the stupefying incompetence of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, the elitist insularity and corruption of the Democratic Party, etc. Longer-term causes (which are intertwined) include the decline of organized labor, which has always served as a bulwark against fascism or semi-fascism; deindustrialization, which has contributed to the economic insecurity that apparently motivated many of Trump’s supporters; and the almost total capture of the Democratic Party by the corporate sector of the economy. But one group of people has tended to escape blame, even despite widespread disgust with the electoral college: the U.S.’s “Founding Fathers.” While they are distant in time from the political obscenity that was Trump’s election, they are far from innocent.
This is clear from two books that every American should read, published in 2008 and 2009 respectively: Woody Holton’s Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution and Terry Bouton’s Taming Democracy: “The People,” the Founders, and the Troubled Ending of the American Revolution. These books reveal the extent to…