If you found yourself transported to early 1788 Philadelphia, say about a year before the U.S. Constitution was signed, an if the Founding Fathers were all willing to hear you out, what would be some of the first things you’d say specifically to warn them and try to prevent some of the bad things that have happened in the real-world timeline since then? Basically, what differences would you want to see made to the U.S. Constitution from the beginning and how would you impress specifically on the Founding Fathers the necessity of diverging from their instincts in specifically those ways?
And keep in mind the Founding Fathers’ beliefs on things like slavery, “the free market”, guns, LGBTQIA+, etc.
“Okay, this one is a freebie, since you’re going to figure it out relatively quickly, but making the runner up to the Presidency is just dumb. Having your political rival as the next in line is just… c’mon, you can do better than that.
Next, I know some of you are concerned about factions. It’s human nature to band together so you can’t really stop this, sorry. That said, this first-past-the-post system is awful and will result in a duopoly and a race to the bottom. If you just adopt ranked choice voting to start with, these factions won’t be neutralized but at least you can ensure more diverse political factions and limit their power to dominate other factions.
Now then, the second amendment. I know it seems straightforward to you, but eventually this language will be too vague. Additionally, those muskets are eventually going to evolve into easily concealable firearms that can fire a dozen or more deadly accurate shots and be reloaded in under a second. Ironically, they’ll still be wildly outclassed by what a tyrant can field against patriots exercising their rights. I’m not going to tell you what you should do, but at the very least you should clarify what a “well regulated militia” means. Yeah, I know the Constitution can be amended so that it can evolve around those firearms, but it remember my previous point? That duopoly will ensure that nothing is done about this and people will argue past each other.
What’s next? Oh yeah… you know that clever set of checks & balances y’all designed? Sure it makes sense that each branch would jealously guard their political power, but those factions are going to prefer to centralize all their power behind a single executive. I know you all who supported the Articles of Confederation are horrified about that idea, but eventually things will evolve back to an elected monarchy, and once they consolidate enough power that elected part will probably disappear too. So uh, might want to strengthen those checks & balances. Good luck on that one.
Finally, I know y’all can’t envision a world without slavery. I get that the southern states are dependent on it and therefore abolishing it overnight seems impossible, but kicking the can down the road (do you guys know that idiom?) is just going to make the problem worse. It will literally divide the country in two and will have major ramifications many centuries later. If you can’t abolish it now, at least put a framework in place to transition away. Maybe in a way that respects those wonderful values you profess in the Declaration of Independence that only apply to a handful of landowning men for now.”