Post #3632890

2026-07-06 17:03 UTC

A convention was called in 1787 to devise and offer amendments to the Articles of Confederation, but the attendees decided that amending the Articles was not enough. What they needed was to *crush democracy* and the mechanism they settled on was the US constitution. The elites who gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 in what came to be known as the Constitutional Convention decided on a governing document that would preserve the appearance of representative democracy while ensuring the permanent rule of a class of wealthy, propertied elites This is why historian Michael Klarman refers to the constitution as a *coup* by those elites against the democratic governments that Americans were experimenting with at the time. 8/

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@HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social 2026-07-06 17:07

Every aspect of the new federal government was designed to ensure that the public would never be able to exercise the power of a democratic majority to dilute the value of debts owed to those elites, or escape taxes to finance those debts, or—god forbid—redistribute property and wealth from those landed, slave-owning elites to the public So: the US receive a House of Representatives, which is directly elected by the public for short terms (but with no power of recall). That House is checked by a second chamber, a Senate, which was originally chosen by state governments for lengthier terms of six years, rather than elected by the public. Executive power is exercised by a single president, with veto power, who is selected by an electoral college rather than the public. The judiciary is appointed, not elected, and serves for life. 9/

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