If I have to read another weepy political thinkpiece by a historian who wants us to know that Joe Biden will rescue the founders’ vision for America, so help me

Wouldn’t it be great if Democrats *didn’t* rely on all this Whiggish, exceptionalist nonsense to bolster their cause?

If maybe they could just say, ‘DJT has committed crimes against humanity, abused his office for personal gain, trashed our international reputation, displayed mind-boggling administrative ineptitude, and destroyed our government, so we probably shouldn’t re-elect him.’

The founding fathers were not nice, squishy, liberal dudes. They floated on top of a world of epic, ruthless, brutal exploitation because they were born to privilege of one kind or another. They wrote a Declaration whose purported vision of equality proved unenforceable

and a massively flawed Constitution which had to be gutted and essentially re-made after it failed to facilitate a peaceful end to the institution of human slavery. They (*cough* George Washington) were personally involved in the murder and dispossession of Indigenous people.

The founders would have thought Trump was a tosser, sure. But they would also not have recognized any of the principles for which modern liberals and progressives stand. This is a *good* thing.

Tl;dr: please find better cheerleaders for your cause than Thomas Bloody Jefferson.