We Were Warned

Tomorrow voters here in the United States will choose whose boot will be stamping their face for the next four years. If you listen to the rhetoric, this election, like every election before it, is the most important election of our lifetime. If Kamala Harris wins, guns will become completely illegal to own, the means of production will be seized, and all of your kids will be forced to be transgender. If Donald Trump wins, he will declare himself emperor and eliminate future elections, make abortions completely illegal even when they're necessary to save the life of the mother, and send all immigrants to death camps.

Of course none of this rhetoric will come to pass. But people believe it will because the presidency has become absurdly powerful. Presidents head the powerful and prolific executive branch, which includes a large number of law enforcement, intelligence, and administrative agencies touching virtually all aspects of American life. They can effectively create laws through executive orders so long as neither Congress nor the Supreme Court challenges them (and they don't more often than note). The presidency is virtually a monarchy, which is exactly what the Anti-Federalists warned against.

Who were the Anti-Federalists? It's a question that should be answered in high school civics and history classes, but the deplorable state of grade school education in this country means many students graduate without every hearing about the Anti-Federalists. It may surprise you, but the Constitution was not the original foundational document of this nation. The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union preceded the Constitution. The Articles of Confederation established a weak confederal government. The keyword here is weak. The Articles were written by people breaking away from a monarchy and had zero interest in establishing another one.

After Shay's Rebellion, the politicians of the time decided the Articles needed some modification. Each of the 13 states sent delegates to Philadelphia with a mandate to make wanted improvements. The delegates decided to exceed their mandate and chose to write an entirely new document, the Constitution. During the process of replacing the weak federal government with the powerful one that lords over us today, there was fierce debate. Those in favor of the Constitution performed an early example of American propaganda by calling themselves Federalists. This left those opposed to the Constitution being called Anti-Federalists. In reality, The Anti-Federalists favored continuing federalism whereas the Federalists favored weakening the power of the 13 states and empowering the federal government.

During this debate, the Anti-Federalists warned of several dangers of the proposed Constitution. The warning that's the subject of this post is that the position of president, which was practically inconsequential under the Articles, would become a virtual monarchy under the Constitution. Under the Articles of Confederation, the presidency was largely administrative. The position carried no executive power. Meanwhile, the Constitution would grant the presidency tremendous powers, including executive power.

With over 200 years of hindsight, we can see that the Anti-Federalists were correct. If the presidency today had the power granted by the Articles of Confederation, nobody would give two shits about who occupied the office because that person would hold no power. But we suffer under the yoke of the Constitution, which grants the president tremendous power. Moreover, that power has been steadily increasing since the Constitution was established.

The rhetoric we're seeing this election is ridiculous. But it's based on a fear that stems from the fact that the president has too much power. Rather than arguing over whose boot will tread slightly lighter, voters should be arguing over ways to weaken the presidency or, at the very least, over ways to prevent the position from becoming more powerful than it already is.

We were warned yet we do nothing now that the warning has undeniably come to pass.