Diametric post

It’s fascinating that the words of the Founding Fathers remain so relevant today. One piece of writing I recently revisited was Federalist No. 10, where James Madison outlines the dangers of faction. What struck me most was how clearly he identifies the roots of political division by observing that the “causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man.” Madison doesn’t just describe faction in the abstract; he categorizes the various sectors of society with competing interests such as landowners, creditors, merchants, and so on. His insights remain remarkably accurate in describing the divisions we still face.

In today’s deeply polarized political climate, I’ve found myself questioning whether the structure of our Constitution still serves us as intended. Congress routinely fails to pass a budget on time, resorting instead to continuing resolutions or enduring government shutdowns. This is not a recent trend. It has become the norm.

Many defenders of the current system point to gridlock as a feature, not a bug, a safeguard against rash decision-making. But how do we reconcile that ideal with the reality of legislative paralysis on urgent issues? From ballooning national debt to the future of Social Security, leaders from both parties publicly acknowledge the stakes, yet meaningful reform seems nearly impossible.

Madison and the other framers sought to build a government that would endure by balancing competing interests, not eliminating them. But we must ask: when the system becomes so mired in conflict that it fails to act at all, is it still serving its purpose? Or has the design intended to preserve liberty become an obstacle to responsible governance?

One concern of Madison’s was that a political system such as direct democracy would allow for a faction with a majority of the votes to steamroll the opposition and potentially oppress them. Instead, he proposed that a republic with checks and balances built into the system would be a more ideal form of government to address the whims of populism or “tyranny of the majority.” The Founders sought to build a system that would stand the test of time. Yet, if the system’s checks now prevent us from addressing critical challenges, whether it’s fiscal sustainability, climate resilience, or national security, then isn’t the system itself at risk?

The Founding Fathers could not see into the future, so they may have had some conception as to how the system they created may lead to some gridlock, but did they foresee it occurring at the level it does today? At what point do we start to recognize that the very safeguards Madison built in can become liabilities when dysfunction becomes the norm? When the Constitution was drafted in 1787, there were few, if any, historical examples of a large, representative republic built around institutional checks and balances that both preserved liberty and functioned effectively over time. What they did have were cautionary tales and theoretical writings, not models to imitate.

The two examples they often brought up in their writings were Ancient Greece and Rome. James Madison was clearly afraid of the instability and mob rule that came from the direct democracy of Athens. On the other hand, the Roman Republic had a more mixed system with consuls and even a Senate. And although this system lasted for centuries, it eventually fell victim to internal strife and became the very thing Madison was concerned with, an oppressive system of government.

Madison and the Founders understood the lessons of Rome well. They saw that unchecked power, whether from a mob or a monarch, inevitably leads to oppression. The Roman Empire offered stability, but only by extinguishing the freedoms the Republic once promised. That historical memory is etched into our Constitution. The real challenge, then, is preserving liberty without collapsing into either chaos or tyranny.

The sad reality is, despite their best efforts to address the effects of factionalism, America has already fallen victim to the seemingly innate cycle of human history. It was less than a century before tensions built up between factions that inevitably led to the Civil War. And today we find ourselves in a similarly high-tension political environment.

Perhaps the risk of an oppressive majority is too high to justify a more efficient and effective political system. That very fear is why Madison and the other Framers intentionally designed a slower, less direct form of government, one that would cool passions and guard against mob rule. But history shows that gridlock carries its own dangers. In Rome, it was political deadlock and elite infighting that opened the door to dictatorship. In America, a failure to resolve sectional differences through the system Madison designed eventually led to civil war. Even with checks and balances, the system proved vulnerable when political will collapsed. And today, the very mechanisms intended to help us change course, like constitutional amendments, feel virtually impossible in such a polarized political environment. So if both unrestrained majority rule and institutional paralysis carry existential risks, then perhaps the question we face is not whether the system is good or bad, but whether it is still capable of evolving.

This post is part of a series reflecting on the roots of polarization and possible reforms.