Was the U.S. designed to be an Oligarchy?

Maybe where we are is where we’re meant to be all along

Photo by John Bakator on Unsplash

On twitter I was disagreeing with a fellow leftist (it happens) when she mentioned that our current government wasn’t what the founding fathers intended. I don’t like the filibuster in the Senate (which definitely wasn’t intended going back, in it’s no talk form, to the glorious days of 1975) and think our government is for the benefit of the billionaires. I don’t like it at all. But that’s not the same as saying this wasn’t what the founding fathers intended.

While Washington warned of the dangers of political parties but that wasn’t prophecy, vitriolic fighting between the parties was already a thing. The bill of rights, the protections we hold so dear, weren’t added as amendments for style, protection of rights were left out of the original document either because they weren’t thought of or because they were thought of and discarded.

So why do I think they would be okay with our government careering towards oligarchy? Well they had an oft expressed fear of democracy and the will of the people. Also the mechanics of government, leaving aside people kept as slaves still counting as some proportion of persons for allotting congressional representation, Senators (more powerful since there were fewer of them) were not elected but chosen by their state government. The…