Read this Alexander Hamilton quote. Then read it again. The founders KNEW what was coming.

[riversedge]

Worth reading if not read before.


Peter Daou‏Verified account @peterdaou 6h6 hours ago

Read this Alexander Hamilton quote. Then read it again. The founders KNEW what was coming.

(via @jbf1755)

Link to tweet

[LOL Lib]

1. Stunning almost prophetic.

[elleng]

2. Here too.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016180653

[pkdu]

3. Someone from the cast should read this aloud at the end of every performance

no extra comment needed.

[CanonRay]

4. A vision of the future

[Wounded Bear]

6. A reflection of the past...

That's the way it's been happening since they invented governments.

[Blue_true]

33. Yep. Down through history, populists and despots have risen and fallen.

Some populist meant well, even when their message was skewed. Despots never meant well in any way.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

5. Wow!

Prescient in every point! Except for the part about possessing considerable talents.

Heh!

[PatSeg]

27. Good point

Last edited Mon Mar 13, 2017, 07:06 PM - Edit history (1)

Unless you consider BS a talent.

edit for grammar

[BlancheSplanchnik]

34. Lol! That's true.

I don't know no way if it's a talent, but he's certainly the best! Terrific!!

[PatSeg]

37. Definitely prolific

What he lacks in deceptive skills, he makes up for in volume.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

39. Like diarrhea.

Yeccccch!

[PatSeg]

40. Exactly!

Perfect analogy

[BlancheSplanchnik]

41. He's shittily prolific

And prolific with the shit!!! 😆😆😆😆




Don't give this guy any fiber.....

baaHAAAAA! That doesn't even really mean anything, but somehow, it still sounds insulting!😆 Good!

[PatSeg]

42. Well

From what I've seen, there is no chance of him getting any fiber in this diet. The shit just comes naturally!

[BlancheSplanchnik]

43. XD LOL!

[kentuck]

7. That is an amazing quote!

[politicat]

16. He grew up in a slave society. Had his inheritance stolen by his mother's former husband.

Because she had the temerity to leave, his mother's husband sought to destroy her sons after her death. He saw his mother fight to support herself and her children in a world where a woman on her own was often legally presumed to be a whore. He saw unchecked power destroy so many people. Almost everyone in his childhood world was exhausted, between heat, malaria and the relentless paranoia of a slave society.

Why is it surprising he foresaw how an unscrupulous individual and a society that fails to pay attention would cause devastation? He'd seen it daily for his first 17 (or 19) years.

When abuse survivors mention that something looks wrong, this is why we believe them. They've seen the patterns.

[Hugo24601]

8. Very relevant today.

[NBachers]

9. Stunning- The day he predicted is upon us.

[lpbk2713]

10. Hamilton must have been a time traveler.

He knew all about Trump.

[C Moon]

11. What I find amazing, is how much the founding fathers cherished what they created.

They obviously thought about it day and night. And wanted to point out to us (in the future) how to keep it in tact.
What happened?

[JudyM]

22. Those who feel entitlement cherish very little.

[dalton99a]

12. Kick.

[Paka]

13. I just sent it off to my BIL a die-hard Trump supporter.

Sadly, I don't expect him to embrace the meaning of the quote.

[Kablooie]

17. He will probably say it describes Obama perfectly.

[Paka]

18. Sadly you are probably spot on with that.

He detests Obama with a passion and will happily find any excuse to accelerate that hatred.

[GeoWilliam750]

14. Does anyone know if this was written in reference to Aaron Burr?

[Lyricalinklines]

15. I'd enjoy hearing his experiences

That led to the wisdom of this statement!

Was it from personal experience? Or second hand?

Interesting and apropos nonetheless!

[alarimer]

19. Hamilton was an authoritarian

He WANTED government by the elite, by the rich. He was no republican. He in face, wanted to be Napoleon himself, in addition to being mainly about enriching himself.

https://thebaffler.com/salvos/hamilton-hustle-stoller

What’s strange about all of this praise is how it presumes that Alexander Hamilton was a figure for whom social justice and democracy were key animating traits. Given how Democrats, in particular, embraced the show and Hamilton himself as a paragon of social justice, you would think that he had fought to enlarge the democratic rights of all Americans. But Alexander Hamilton simply didn’t believe in democracy, which he labeled an American “disease.” He fought—with military force—any model of organizing the American political economy that might promote egalitarian politics. He was an authoritarian, and proud of it.

To assert Hamilton disliked democracy is not controversial. The great historian Henry Adams described an evening at a New York dinner, when Hamilton replied to democratic sentiment by banging the table and saying, “Your people, sir—your people is a great beast!” Hamilton’s recommendation to the Constitutional Convention, for instance, was to have a president for life, and to explicitly make that president not subject to law.

Professional historians generally avoid emphasizing Hamilton’s disdain for the people, at least when they write for the broad public. Better to steer safely clear of the freight train of publicity and money behind the modern Hamilton myth. One exception is amateur historian William Hogeland, who noted in a recent Boston Review essay that Hamilton had strong authoritarian tendencies. Hamilton, he wrote, consistently emphasized “the essential relationship between the concentration of national wealth and the obstruction of democracy through military force.”

Indeed, most of Hamilton’s legacy is astonishingly counter-democratic. His central role in founding both the financial infrastructure of Wall Street and a nascent military establishment (which supplanted the colonial system of locally controlled democratic militias) was rooted in his self-appointed crusade to undermine the ability of ordinary Americans to govern themselves. We should be grateful not that Hamilton structured the essential institutions of America to fit his vision, but that he failed to do so. Had he succeeded, we would probably be living in a military dictatorship.

[Ligyron]

23. No wonder Pence wanted to see "Hamilton".

A perfect role-model and hero for the RW.

[pangaia]

29. Thank you for taking the time to find and post this.

[Blue_true]

36. Every single one of the Founding Fathers had faults.

Franklin was a person that put his financial interests first, favoring businesses that he had an interest in when spending government funds.

It was routine for powerful men of that day to have mistresses, even the desirable wives of less powerful men, and there was often nothing the less fortunate men could do about it.

Hamilton was a man of his time, a time when mob rule and violence and powerful men raising militias to get their way was commonplace. That Hamilton may have raised a militia isn't surprising. Hamilton was also one of the most forward thinking minds of his day.

[Blue_true]

35. If you study each founding father, you will see that all had blemishes.

While Hamilton (and Jefferson) favored having only elites rule, their views were based upon watching and thinking about the dynamics of mob rule (as the French found out for a long time after the French Revolution).

Hamilton had a number of excellent ideas, among them being the notion of commonwealth and a national treasury that served the nation's interests.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

38. Wow!!

Thank you for that. I already knew about Hamilton's authoritarianism, but that was a very clear and contextual visit of he and the political framework he envisioned, and the social and cultural environment he lived in.

Thomas Jefferson's affinity for the common man and Native Americans (and their tendency towards anarchist-style governing) has been noted by many. Though the modern political (not philosophical) term for anarchism had yet to be established, though anarchists existed for millennia, we certainly claim him. Of course, he was also hypocritical in that he owned slaves. Jefferson's ideals, at least, served as an obstacle to Hamilton's authoritarianism.

[Motley13]

20. I can hear prez putz now

who is Alexander Hamilton? or
He is doing a great job like Frederick Douglass

[Martin Eden]

21. Hamilton and Orwell were both prophets

That could have been written yesterday to describe Trump/Bannon.

[Azathoth]

24. Not really prophetic

Dangerous self-aggrandizing demagogues were as much a threat then as they are now. Hamilton isn't showing clairvoyance, he's simply stating what educated men at the time knew.

What makes Trump unique is how mediocre he is. The Founders assumed that republican government would naturally result in society's most talented rising to the levers of power, the danger being that the most talented man in the room is not always the wisest or the most ethical, and the more unscrupulous he is, the more of an advantage he gains. What they never saw coming was the power of modern mass media combined with the absurdly scripted nature of presidential campaigns. Basic talent is no longer required. Trump isn't a talented and dangerous demogogue, he's an idiot boy king handed the throne by a mass media entertainment complex. And that's the kind of Old World aristocratic excess the Founders thought they had left behind.

[smirkymonkey]

26. K&R

[treestar]

28. Hmmm

And yet the people, if they were allowed to elect the POTUS directly, did a good job of it.

[procon]

30. That was certainly prophetic. nt

[alfredo]

31. He foresaw the shock doctrine.

[Highway61]

32. Norm Chomsky

REQUIEM FOR THE AMERICAN DREAM....A must see. He covers all of that. The table was set a very long time ago.