Well, it must be time for another ‘State of the Union’ address from our country’s leader, the President of the United States ~ have you ever listen to any of these speeches?
The ruling political party is normally quite happy and proud of their achievements; always a bunch of positive information shared, lots of applause from the majority while the opposition remains stone faced and offers boos and objections.
The minority party is normally unhappy, and some members this year have decided not to even attend. There is little to indicate that both political parties will work together for the benefit of the nation.
The Republic and Democracy are on the move!
The American public always seems a ‘bit unsettled’ about current events like the cost of groceries, wages, expenses, wars, waste in government, law officials showing up in cities in masks, corruption, abuse of power etc.
Many years ago, I was reading that history of our nation.
In particular, I remembered that President Jefferson supported a balance budget, reduced federal spending, reduced taxes and the elimination of the national debt.
I wondered today what Jefferson might think of the country’s 38 trillion-dollar debt.
In the November 2025 edition of the “Atlantic” magazine, Irish writer Fintan O’Toole, wrote an interesting piece titled ‘What the Founders would say now’?“
As I began reading the article, Fintan questioned what the founders may have thought of Elon Musk, in the recent Presidential election, handing out ‘one million dollars’ to voters in swing states to tilt the election a certain direction. Buying votes surely would have been abhorred by the earlier founders.
Fintan thought briefly about Lincoln’s reaction to our government during the Civil War; while he was delivering the Gettysburg address, Lincoln wondered if the Republic created ‘four score and seven years ago’ by the founding fathers might be about to ‘perish from the earth.’
Fintan visited too, Jefferson’s and Madison’s 1807 implementation of exports and imports of our early country, and the devasting effect it had on the farmers at that time.
Today, I wondered about all the pros and cons of our own country’s tariff philosophy. On one hand, unforeseen profits are being made, but not all Americans are benefiting from that initiative.
That notion of ‘all men created equal’ seemed a little misplaced at the time in 1776, when Washington, Jefferson and Madison owned slaves, while women and Native Americans were not quite a part of the equality experiment then.
We have come a long way on our journey.
Fintan continued his inquiry.
What would the founding fathers say of today’s cultural makeup of our current population. In 1790, 60 percent of white Americans were of English ancestry; the rest Irish, German, Scottish, French, Dutch and Swedish.
Today, that population is described as ‘that strange mixture of blood’ which you will find in no other country. What is the future of a multicultural society?
How about that issue of religion? Our constitution says ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.‘ How will that notion fare as our march down the road of the future continues as different religions arrive?
Fintan offered another thought. Once Ben Franklin received a valuable snuff box from the King of France; bothered by this gift, Franklin was so sensitive to bribery suspicion, he requested congressional approval to keep it.
Wonder what Franklin might think of President Trump, accepting a $400 million dollar jet airplane from the nation of Qatar?
Madison, an early founder, questioned the future of the government as the new country became much larger. Would that aspect of a ‘Republic’ grow in another direction like a ‘Monarchy’ (a form of government where supreme authority is vested in a single individual).
The early founders were weary of those despots like King George III and fought to get out from under his oppression and misdeeds of his actions and rule.
The founding fathers also sought to set up a new form of government different from those who hold ‘absolute power’ and rules in a ‘cruel and/or oppressive way‘ as the king of England did back in our early history.
The founding fathers, for certain, did not have all the answers to their problems, but their search for ‘freedom’ in a new world was established with that Declaration of Independence penned by Thomas Jefferson and early founders of this new world some 250 years ago.
What would those founding fathers think today?
“For the times they are a changin” sang Bob Dylan, and maybe those departed founding fathers would agree with his lyrics.
Almost 250 years and still counting!
Good Luck America!
