LET US examine the parts of the American Constitution, as Paine did for the English Constitution. We immediately find traces of two medieval tyrannies, adapted to modern republican tastes.

First, the remains of monarchical tyranny reside in the office of the president and the executive branch, modeled on Britain’s king and his court, which was ruled by decree.

Second, traces of aristocratic tyranny endure in the U.S. Senate, modeled on Britain’s House of Lords, the nobility.

Serving the common people is the U.S. House of Representatives, modeled on Britain’s House of Commons. The true republican spirit still dwells in these American and British legislatures. On their virtue rest our best hope for preserving democracy.

The Senate and House combined form the United States Congress, mirroring Britain’s combined Parliament. Each assembly in America and Britain is a majestic body. Sadly, those elected to these bodies too often contribute too little to our actual freedom and prosperity.

Now focus on the U.S. system. A president can serve two four-year terms. Senators can serve unlimited six-year terms. Representatives can serve unlimited two-year terms. Because private wealth funds their campaigns, they are not beholding to the common voters. They feel little affinity for those persuaded to elect them. They’re supposed to maintain frequent contact with voters at home to keep their seats. Instead, they devote far more time to fundraising than to lawmaking. Their interests lie apart from those they represent.

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PRESIDENTIAL power is checked by the Congress. The Senate ratifies cabinet and court appointments while the House approves a president’s budget. The Constitution gives the president a countering power to check Congress with a veto of their legislation. A so-called “ balance of powers” exists because, as Paine wrote,

“A [chronic] thirst for absolute power is the natural disease of monarchy.”

Yet in fairness, we must concede that this constitutional system of checks and balances is based on two contradictory presumptions. The veto provision assumes that the president is wiser than all of those in Congress, but the right to approve appointments and budgets assumes that Congress is wiser than the president. How can each be wiser than the other? Paine declared that this same illogical disparity between the British crown and Parliament was a “mere absurdity!”

And there’s a ludicrous aspect to the job of the presidency itself. Presidents are encircled by layers of protective buffers, much like in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, where tiny Lilliputian “flappers” must move the king’s lips and ears before he can communicate. In the same way, the president is cut off from hearing about alternate policy options, yet the president has the power to act in cases that require the most informed judgment possible. Notice the contradiction.

Security for a president isolates the high leader from the world, but the business of being president requires that leader to know the world intimately. Opposing and undermining one another, these conflicting demands for security and access must make the routine character of the presidency feel surreal at times. The confusion must inevitably confound sound decision-making in the White House.

Also, the private interests backing the election of a president often filter out options of higher merit that do not serve their cause or their ideology. The president winds up in a self-contained echo chamber. As a consequence, short-sighted policies prevail. A president’s work product can be ineffective at best or destructive at worst.