Did the Founders Make a Critical Mistake?

Jamelle Bouie is almost always wrong.

But he is the best opinion columnist at The New York Times. Why? Because he at least does some research before he scribbles for the newspaper, and his essays are generally thought provoking.

Take for example a recent column that suggested the Founders make a critical mistake.

I agree, but not for the reasons Bouie suggests.

The Founders make a critical mistake when they ratified the Constitution and then another when they did not provide an enforcement mechanism for the Tenth Amendment.

Once the nationalists had the keys to the car, they ran over their opponents.

It was more like a bulldozer than an automobile.

Bouie thinks the Founders have too many “checks and balances” in the system, particularly when it comes to federalism, the Electoral College, and the rules of the Senate.

You see, these checks and balances tend to thwart progressive programs.

A supermajority doesn’t allow for nightmare leftist government, at least in theory.

Tell that to the federal court system. Bouie doesn’t like that either, unless they are doing exactly what he wants–which would be most of the last one hundred years excluding the current Supreme Court.

Calhoun would agree, but he thought the “supermajority” wasn’t really that super. Consider that these supposed “anti-democratic checks and balances” Bouie worries about have never stopped the unconstitutional expansion of federal power or executive government.

Just take a look at Washington D.C. today, and Calhoun was simply worried about federally funded internal improvements, a central bank, and protective tariffs.

We can only imagine what he would think about a central government with virtually unlimited powers, not matter how often Bouie whines about “un-democratic conservatives.”

The fact is, the nationalists orchestrated the greatest coup in American political history, a coup eventually brought the progressives to power on both the left and the right.

Either way, his pieces always make great Podcast fodder. I discuss Bouie and his critique of the Founders on Episode 883 of The Brion McClanahan Show.