What Goes Around: Federalism

People want to know if Mitt Romney is a Federalist. Well, there were many kinds of Federalists, serious idealists like George Washington and John Adams and all those plutocrats whose names we don't remember. Soon we won't remember "Mitt Romney."

A Federalist believed that there were two classes of people, a 1% born to leadership (enhanced by a Harvard education and the leisure to think deep thoughts supplied by wealth) and a natural loser class of followers, the 99%,  who worked on farms or in useful businesses. Federalist leaders did not work in useful businesses--they speculated. Even in 1780 the leaders were venture capitalists, not manufacturers, according to Federalist ideology.

Federalist leaders were entitled to hold our public offices. The offices supposedly came to them without effort, as the farming masses eagerly voted for their betters. A Federalist expected American class divisions to grow until they resembled the class divisions in Great Britain. That was, for Federalists, the natural order. Unfortunately about 90% of the voters were farmers, and as the right to vote was extended, farmers and other ordinary folk began to win elections. The Federalist Party vanished. Or maybe not.