Talking about the presidents, learning about the development of US political structures, institutes and principles, gives an obvious and equally oft forgotten insight into where US politics is today. We have gone way back, right to the beginning, and are working our way through the list of US leaders.

We have inadvertently decided not to follow the usual deference and romanticism that figures so prominently in discussions on the founding fathers, the big hitters of US political history. We cannot separate their influence on US politics from their lack of intervention in the slave trade, from their barbaric approach to the First Nations, and the way they considered the white man to be above all.

We pay them the compliments they are due on the basis of attributes not related to the horrors of their domestic, superior policies.Madison wa ...