this post was submitted on 31 May 2024
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He probably should have advocated for a system that wouldn't reault in this bullshit then. Federalists vs Democrat-Republicans became the de-facto state of US politics immediately after ratification of the constitution. You don't get to complain about your dog shitting on the carpet if you never let it out.
He didn't write the constitution alone and subsequent Congresses and presidential administrations had over a century to heed his warnings before the duopoly became unassailable.
Hell, as late as 1912, Teddy Roosevelt had a realistic chance of winning back the presidency as the head of a more progressive party (the aptly named Progressive Party, better known as the Bull Moose Party) that he founded the summer of that year!
Trump has as good a chance of running as a third party candidate as Teddy had. The duopoly has been in place since the 1850s, 60 years agter the constitution was written and ratified. You cant rant and rave about parties all you want, but they are inevitable with our current system.
Trump did run as third party. Several times. He dropped out every time without winning any delegates. 2016 was not his first rodeo, just the first one he finally convinced the RNC to nominate him.
There's a reason you want to be under one of the big tent parties. They get more funding to campaign and they get party hardliners basically for free. Adolf Hitler could run as a Republican and you'd still see lifelong Republicans turn out to vote (R) down ballot regardless.
Seems like we have placed blame squarely on some shoulders that died 51 years before the event took place. Not sure I'm buying the math. By the time we're counting as "the duopoly took over" he had been dead longer than I have been alive. Seems to me like the people in control over the at that point 74 years since he had been president could possibly have also influenced the direction the country took.
It was a de-facto duopoly for the first 30 years of the country, then the Whigs came in and shook everything up before the Republican party came into being. So while the 3 parties that have held the White House in the last 200 years all formed after Washington died, this was common then.
Of course Washington in particular had indeed said "that is a bad idea." I still fail to see how blame falls singularly on him, was literally every other founding father inconsequential and the entirety of our legal system was singularly written by one man?
I didn't say it is all his fault, but he was the most influential man in America from Independence until his death. He was at the Constitution convention and the only part he sat out for was when they debated the office of the head executive, since everyone knew it was going to be him.
People quote his farewell address to criticize the Democrats and GOP, but the government structure he helped create makes parties inevitable.
Maybe that was another poster above, my mistake. He was indeed influential but far from the sole decider in the shaping of the country, and while yes he did help install the system that lead to the current situation it's possible that 200+ years of hindsight affects our judgement in a different way than his was, and he still foresaw the need to not get stuck in a two party system. Sure, he may not have been an omniscient all powerful being able to usher in an eternity of utopian bliss, but he tried his best to improve the station of the people at the time.