It seems there is a faction of people who hold the Founding Fathers up to be almost gods (but certainly some kind of divine representative). So much so that they figure a 240ish yr old legal document is as applicable in today's culture as in one from that long ago.
I'm curious, is there anything you think that Founding Fathers really should have thought a bit harder on. So I'm thinking problems that they REALLY should have been able to foresee and not empowered.
For example (and I am NOT a historian so please feel free to eviscerate and enlighten me)....I don't understand how a judge appointed by a president would be permitted to try that same president in their court room. How is it that this did not have some kind of stop gap measure?
Thoughts? Other examples? Keeping in mind it I'm looking MOSTLY for examples that are not explicitly from our times but are problems that could have arisen back then (ie..nothing about AI...that kinda thing)
Some people might be tempted to say things like "slavery" or "universal suffrage" but the fact of the matter is those never would have passed at the time (it should also be noted that one thing no one could have plausibly foreseen was the invention of the cotton gin, which played a big role in supercharging the institution of slavery). I'll therefore be focusing on things that could have possibly been done back then.
One thing that I think is an issue, but I'm not sure was avoidable, is the ridiculously difficult process of amending the Constitution (changing the Constitution should be hard, but not
this hard). But the difficulty of amending the Constitution may have been necessary to convince all the other states to join in without fear that suddenly the government would say "hey, thanks for signing our Constitution! Now here's a bunch of amendments you don't want you now have to follow." Unfortunately, it doesn't mean it hasn't caused a lot of issues subsequently.
But setting aside things where (even if suggested) implementation might have been impossible without losing some of the states, to me there's one big error that permeates the Constitution that was avoidable to at least some extent: Not taking into account the power of political parties. Political parties are one of the most powerful and influential forces in politics, and it's very obvious the Constitution was made without anticipating the effects they would have.
As I saw someone remark:
The Founders expected government officials would be loyal to themselves first, their branches second, and the American people third. A lot of our checks and balances are based on the idea that elected legislators and elected Presidents have few common political interests and are mutually jealous and suspicious of each other.
Political parties spoil this assumption. In fact, the President has strong political ties and shared interests with certain members of Congress, and vice versa. Loyalty to the party and the party agenda comes way ahead of branch loyalty, and sometimes even trumps loyalty to one's self.
Because of political parties, instead of electors in the electoral college actually conversing amongst themselves in order to decide the votes as was the original intention, they quickly became robots for the candidates their political parties chose. The presidential veto, which was supposed to prevent the legislature from overwhelming the president, instead (largely due to political parties) makes the President the effective leader of the legislature. And, of course, political parties are what make gerrymandering so pernicious. One could no doubt list more examples of how things in the Constitution that would make sense if you assumed you'd have at most some small political factions end up not working so well when you have two dominant national parties. I will be complimentary and say it's impressive they came up with a system that worked as well as it did even while not anticipating the power of political parties, but it's still a huge oversight.
Granted, your question is about things they should have foreseen. How much they
could have foreseen the power of political parties is debatable, as political parties really only became a thing after the Constitution was passed. It's hard to anticipate something that didn't exist yet. However, political
factions were definitely known, even if they weren't as formal or powerful as political parties. I don't think it was possible to foresee
how powerful political parties would be, but I think it would definitely have been possible to see they'd be a major force; it's not like they only came by decades later, they were a huge national force quite quickly.
Some level of foreseeing it and appropriate adjustment of the Constitution in order to accommodate such forces seems possible.
So I think the big one that was actually avoidable was their error in not foreseeing the impact of political parties.
