In looking at the howls by the Orange Blob's MAGA crew in Congress

[kairos12]

concerning the 6 January attack it is mindful to recall this unfortunate fact. The Founding Fathers had thought up safeguards against a strongman takeover the government. Congress and the Courts could hold him back.

What the writers of the Constitution had not considered is one faction of the Republic (party and people) would throw in it's lot with the the would-be dictator.

[RKP5637]

1. Somehow, they see that as beneficial ... certainly not from him. He's a narcissistic sociopath, he does

not give a shit about any of them, other than to use them and throw them out when he's finished with them.

[hlthe2b]

2. The founding "fathers" feared political factions (parties) would tear the US apart...

as they had in Britain.
https://www.history.com/news/founding-fathers-political-parties-opinion

John Adams worried that “a division of the republic into two great parties … is to be dreaded as the great political evil.” And that’s exactly what has come to pass.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/two-party-system-broke-constitution/604213/


In their views on the evil of political parties, I am not sure they failed to consider a merging with a potential despot. They knew their history throughout the world.

[Happy Hoosier]

3. And yet, they built a political system that made such a thing inevitable. NT

[hlthe2b]

4. They sought to prevent it... that they failed was not an intent to enable such emergence.

The Framers thought they were using the most advanced political theory of the time to prevent parties from forming. By separating powers across competing institutions, they thought a majority party would never form. Combine the two insights—a large, diverse republic with a separation of powers—and the hyper-partisanship that felled earlier republics would be averted. Or so they believed.

However, political parties formed almost immediately because modern mass democracy requires them, and partisanship became a strong identity, jumping across institutions and eventually collapsing the republic’s diversity into just two camps.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/two-party-system-broke-constitution/604213/

[Happy Hoosier]

5. Any winner-take-all system....

will tend to two dominant factions. Even parliamentary systems tend to "coalitions" that aren't all that different from a two-party system.

I'm not really sure what a viable alternative looks like.

[hlthe2b]

6. 100% publicly--funded elections could go a long way to help

[Happy Hoosier]

7. Maybe?

I mean, I AM in favor of that, but it seems to me that he mechanisms of government in our country still encourage binary opposition.