Founding Fictions

Founding Fictions

by Elle Van Gundy

Government History

Season 1

Hamilton vs. Jefferson: How Their "Moral Blind Spot" Still Poisons American Politics

This deep dive dismantles the fiction of the founders as a "uniform front." The real story is the bitter rivalry between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, which defined America's core conflict: federal power versus states' rights. This famous dichotomy, however, was built on a "Great Contradiction." Both of their competing philosophies depended on slavery and the systemic dispossession of Indigenous peoples. Jefferson, who wrote "all men are created equal," justified his ownership of over 600 people with "scientific racism." Hamilton's "overstated" abolitionism was secondary to his goal of economic unity, which required partnering with the slave economy. Their "common ground" was achieved through exclusionary compromise. The Three-Fifths Compromise gave slave states disproportionate political power. The Compromise of 1790 traded Hamilton's debt plan for placing the nation's capital between two slave states. This legacy led to the "Great Reversal" where parties "flipped," culminating in the GOP's "Southern Strategy." The founders' "unity" achieved through "moral blindness" is a flawed blueprint that continues to sabotage us today.

The Declaration's Playbook: How Modern Threats Like Project 2025 and Qualified Immunity Map to the 5 Phases of Tyranny

This isn't your standard history lesson on the Declaration of Independence. We're treating the founding document not as a relic, but as a living "playbook"—a diagnostic tool for identifying the step-by-step process of tyranny. By applying the founders' 18th-century logic to modern issues, this episode explores what the Declaration's grievances reveal about today's political landscape. We investigate parallels between the "swarms of officers" and Project 2025's "Schedule F," the loss of "trial by jury" and the secret FISA courts, "mock trials" and the doctrine of qualified immunity, and the denial of fair representation and partisan gerrymandering. Join us as we use the founders' own threshold for resistance to ask a tough question: Are our modern "new guards"—the courts, legislature, and press—simply flawed, or are they becoming fundamentally non-functional?

The 27 Grievances: Is America Following the Declaration's Roadmap to Tyranny?

The 27 Grievances in the Declaration of Independence had a clear target. Today, our crises are diffuse, and accountability seems to vanish. This episode contrasts the 18th century's radical claim of responsibility with our 21st-century search for it. We explore why the most important question has become "Who is liable?" and argue that the only way forward is to stop searching for responsibility and, like the founders, collectively claim it.

A Playbook of Tyranny ... mini episode deep dive

Don't just read the Declaration of Independence—decode it. This episode dives past "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" into the 27 grievances, revealing them as a systematic "playbook for tyranny." We trace the five phases of the King's "design" to establish absolute despotism, from neutralizing the legislature to waging war. Then, we show how this "diagnostic tool" became the blueprint for the U.S. Constitution, which was engineered to block every single play.

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