SmarterthanYou
rebel
for most except you. you still live in a world where you think that the federal government created the USA and has near total power over it's subjects. nothing could be further from the truth.
Trump as a constitutional originalist
- Thread starter Truth Detector
- Start date
So the Founders didn’t author the Constitution to create a framework for a new Government
Grim Reaper
Chief Exit Officer (CEO)
This is a persuasive opinion piece, not a neutral historical or legal analysis. It blends accurate historical references with interpretive claims about Trump and the Founding Fathers. The key question for fact-checking is not just “are facts mentioned correctly?” but also “do those facts actually support the conclusion?”
1. Is Trump a “constitutional originalist”?
Claim: Trump is a constitutional originalist and a return to founding principles.
Fact check: This is misleading framing.
- Originalism is a legal philosophy about interpreting the Constitution based on its original public meaning (associated with jurists like Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas).
- Trump is not a constitutional theorist and has not consistently articulated originalist reasoning in legal terms.
- He did appoint multiple conservative and originalist-leaning judges (e.g., Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett), which supports an indirect association, but that is different from “Trump is an originalist.”
Bottom line: This is rhetorical labeling, not a factual classification.
2. Founding Fathers / historical references
These are mostly accurate but selectively used:
✔ Accurate references
- Thomas Paine’s Common Sense → correctly described.
- Jefferson’s “self-evident truths” → correctly quoted from the Declaration of Independence.
- Washington’s warning against entangling alliances → accurate.
- Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures → correctly cited.
- Washington’s neutrality stance → broadly accurate historical interpretation.
But important context missing
The Founders did not agree on a single ideology:
- Hamilton supported a strong central government and industrial policy
- Jefferson favored agrarianism and limited federal power
- Washington’s warnings were prudential, not isolationist doctrine
So the piece cherry-picks compatible quotes to build a unified ideological “founding philosophy” that historians generally consider oversimplified.
3. Claim: Trump represents “founding principles”
This is interpretive, not factual.
The article links Trump policies to founding ideas like:
- sovereignty
- skepticism of foreign entanglement
- economic independence
- “common sense” governance
But historians would note:
- The Founding Era had no unified stance on trade tariffs, immigration, or modern regulatory issues
- Issues like:
- “no biological men in women’s sports”
- modern citizenship voting rules
- federal agency hiring practices
are 21st-century political disputes, not constitutional founding principles
So the argument is:
But it becomes misleading when reframed as:
That leap is not historically supported.
4. China / foreign policy framing
- The claim that Trump emphasizes sovereignty and competition with China is partly accurate as a description of rhetoric and trade policy direction
- But the assertion that the Founders’ philosophy maps cleanly onto modern US–China strategic competition is anachronistic
- The geopolitical system (global supply chains, nuclear deterrence, WTO frameworks) did not exist in the founding era
5. Misattributed / questionable quotes at the end
These are important:
Orwell quote
- Commonly attributed to Orwell online
- No verified source in Orwell’s published works
- Considered misattributed
Dostoevsky quote
- Not found in Dostoevsky’s writings
- Widely circulated internet paraphrase or fabrication
Booker T. Washington quote
- Often attributed to him online
- No solid historical source confirming it
Bottom line: These are motivational internet quotes, not reliably sourced historical statements.
6. Overall evaluation of the piece
What is factually grounded:
- Historical references to Paine, Jefferson, Washington, Hamilton
- General descriptions of Trump policy positions (broadly accurate)
- Trump’s rhetorical emphasis on sovereignty and trade reciprocity
What is interpretive / opinion:
- Trump being a continuation of founding philosophy
- “Common sense” as a political ideology rooted in the Constitution
- Equating modern policy debates with founding-era intent
What is misleading:
- Treating selective founding quotes as a unified ideological endorsement of modern Trump policies
- Implied historical continuity between 18th-century governance and 21st-century political disputes
- Use of misattributed quotes to reinforce moral authority
Bottom line
The piece is best understood as:
It contains real historical facts, but it uses them in a way that overstates continuity and simplifies major historical disagreements among the Founders.
SmarterthanYou
rebel
i'm glad you are finally listening to me.
Well, if you think it would be okay for Kamala voters to have machine guns, you truly are lost in a wilderness of ignorance.
lam:How did ownership of machine guns work for us in the 20's and 30's?
Brainless halfwit leftist assclown believes everything is "listed" in the Constitution. Hey, dumb fuck, where is "separation of Chruch and State" listed?
Hey, dumkbfuck, where is "birthright citizenship" listed?
Well, you know what they say about dumbfucks, they don't even know they are dumbfucks.
Not really. It's called arguing with a leftist retard. One should never argue with leftist retards, they should just point at them and laugh.
Nothing dumber than an uneducated leftist halfwit who believes we need "deciders".
Pointless word salad. You seem to be quite full of it halfwit.
I don't think lying leftist halfwits like you can post without lying and looking like brainless morons.
Tireless stupidity. But alas, Kamal voting morons are the dumbest people on the planet. SmarterthanYou
rebel
so you only approve of rights for those you are politically aligned with? how patriotic of youWell, if you think it would be okay for Kamala voters to have machine guns, you truly are lost in a wilderness of ignorance.
How did ownership of machine guns work for us in the 20's and 30's?
there's a whole history of why and how machine guns were eventually prohibited, none of which are constitutional.
Ichabod Stain
Was it me?
oh is he getting rid of the federal reserve and going back to tariffs to fund the entire federal government?A very good read on understanding who Trump is.
Trump as a constitutional originalist
The president is restoring our founding principles
President Trump is often portrayed as a disruption of the American political tradition — an outsider who shattered long-standing norms. Yet that interpretation may miss the larger historical context.
In important ways, Mr. Trump represents not a break from America’s founding principles but rather a return to them.
His political instincts, sometimes blunt, sometimes controversial, echo ideas that have shaped the United States since its birth: common sense over technocratic abstraction, national sovereignty over global management, and economic independence, patriotic confidence and a preference for conflict settlements or peacemaking to counter China’s systematic promotion and bankrolling of global conflicts.
At the center of Mr. Trump’s political appeal is something deceptively simple: common sense. Common sense has deep roots in American political culture.
The American Revolution was launched under that banner. Thomas Paine’s famous pamphlet urging independence from Britain was titled “Common Sense” for a reason. Paine’s argument was not built on complicated theory or elite philosophy. Written in plain language for ordinary people, it made the straightforward case that a distant monarchy ruling a continent-sized society made little sense.
Thomas Jefferson used a similar concept in the Declaration of Independence while describing America’s founding principles as “self-evident truths.”
That phrase is essentially the philosophical equivalent of common sense: ideas that do not require elaborate justification because ordinary people recognize them immediately.
Mr. Trump’s supporters often frame many of his policy positions in precisely those terms as modern “self-evident truths.” Among them: no biological men in women’s sports, requiring proof of citizenship to vote, imposing tougher penalties for violent crime, hiring based on merit in federal agencies, limiting gender transition procedures for minors, pursuing energy independence, insisting on reciprocal tariffs in trade and demanding fairer pricing for prescription drugs.
Critics may disagree with these policies, but the rhetorical strategy is clear. Mr. Trump presents his agenda not as ideological experimentation but as practical, intuitive solutions to problems many voters believe elites have unnecessarily complicated.
Mr. Trump’s worldview also reflects another core principle of the American founding: the primacy of national sovereignty.
The Founding Fathers were deeply wary of allowing the young republic to become entangled in global power struggles. Jefferson argued that the United States should remain independent from Europe’s rivalries and act as a sovereign nation free from external domination. This did not mean isolation from the world. The Founders believed strongly in trade and diplomacy, but on terms that preserved American independence.
George Washington warned against permanent political alliances with foreign powers. Jefferson summarized the preferred approach with his famous line: “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations — entangling alliances with none.”
Washington’s Neutrality Proclamation of 1793 reflected this philosophy. The United States, he argued, should avoid involvement in foreign wars unless its own security was directly threatened.
Economic independence was another priority. Alexander Hamilton’s “Report on Manufactures” in 1791 argued that the United States needed to develop its own industrial capacity rather than rely too heavily on foreign producers. Hamilton understood that political sovereignty ultimately depends on economic strength.
Mr. Trump’s emphasis on domestic manufacturing, supply chain security and reciprocal trade reflects a modern version of that same concern.
The Founders also deeply worried about foreign influence within the United States. Washington and James Madison warned that outside powers might attempt to manipulate American politics. More than two centuries later, those concerns remain relevant in an era of geopolitical rivalry and global information warfare.
Beyond policy details, Mr. Trump taps into something deeper in the American tradition: a strong belief in the uniqueness of the American experiment.
The Founders believed they were attempting something unprecedented: a political system based not on hereditary privilege but rather on popular sovereignty and individual liberty.
The Constitution’s architecture, including separation of powers, checks and balances, and federalism, was designed to protect freedom by limiting the concentration of power. They also believed that the American example might inspire others around the world. The United States was not merely another country; it was a democratic experiment with universal significance.
Mr. Trump’s rhetoric frequently reflects this sense of national pride. In tone, it echoes earlier moments of American political leadership. President Reagan captured the same sentiment when he warned, “If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth.” Mr. Trump expressed a similar idea in his 2017 inaugural address: “We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example for everyone to follow.”
In foreign policy, Mr. Trump has emphasized a principle long embedded in American diplomacy: fairness and reciprocity. Trade, in this view, should not be one-sided. If other countries impose tariffs on American goods, then the United States has every right to respond in kind.
Mr. Trump has framed strategic competition with China as a defense of international fairness and freedom of navigation, particularly in critical waterways such as the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait. From this perspective, the goal is not global domination but the preservation of open commerce and sovereign equality among nations.
Finally, Mr. Trump frequently describes himself as someone who prefers negotiation to endless conflict. He has said he would like his legacy to be that of a peacemaker.
That aspiration also fits within a long American tradition. Many U.S. military interventions, from World War I and World War II to the Cold War, were justified not only as acts of national defense but also as efforts to preserve global stability and prevent future wars.
Seen through this historical lens, Mr. Trump begins to look less like a political anomaly and more like a modern expression of an older American tradition rooted in common sense, national sovereignty, economic independence, patriotic confidence and the pursuit of global peace for equal opportunity in commerce.
Whether one agrees with his policies or not, the deeper argument is difficult to dismiss: Trumpism, in this interpretation, is not an accident of history. It is part of a long American story.
Trump as a constitutional originalist
President Trump is often portrayed as a disruption of the American political tradition — an outsider who shattered long-standing norms. Yet that interpretation may miss the larger historical context.www.washingtontimes.com
I am amused that you think being a purist is a sign of intelligence. As I stated, how did those machine guns work in the 20 and 30s?
All of which were sane considering the murderous criminal gangs that were using them. DUH!
As soon as you show signs of intelligence halfwit.
Ichabod Stain
Was it me?
you're must be an ignorant fascist who doesn't understand the treachery of the federal reserve or the innate totalitarianism of fiat currency.As soon as you show signs of intelligence halfwit.
Into the Night
Contributor
What do you care? You despise the Constitution anyway.
You must be an unhinged, low IQ, uneducated lying loon.
Ichabod Stain
Was it me?
why has the treasury, the constitutional thing, been totally replaced by the federal reserve?You must be an unhinged, low IQ, uneducated lying loon.
think before you answer.
Ichabod Stain
Was it me?
this is an actual real subject, deserving of respect.You must be an unhinged, low IQ, uneducated lying loon.
or you're a goon who hates actual freedom and the constitution.
SmarterthanYou
rebel
you sound like a liberal, wanting to take away rights because some abuse them. not very smart of you.