In our increasingly fractured political landscape, Federalist 10: The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection, offers an interesting take from the founding fathers on how the Constitution is intended to deal with times like ours, when political factions and aspiring insurrectionists are aplenty, and are more aggressive and influential than any time in recent memory.

In the penultimate paragraph of the essay, Madison describes a number of “improper or wicked project[s]” that may take root within factions and localities in some states, but are unlikely to permeate the Union at large. One can’t help but notice a striking similarity between wicked projects at the founding and central campaign promises of political candidates today. The improper and wicked projects Madison used as examples were: “A rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, [or] for an equal division of property”. If looked at as incremental steps to achieving a wicked republic, the country seems to be battling over the second step today. Candidates such as Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders featured the abolition of student debt as centerpieces of their campaigns, and the 2020 Democratic nominee has all but adopted the idea himself. In the case of Bernie Sanders, it’s not hard to imagine his aspirations for step three.

Clearly, then, Madison must have made a grave miscalculation if he thought the Constitution written at the convention would do well to stop these ideas from pervading the Union. The first wicked project did not take long to come to fruition. Paper money was attempted during the Revolutionary War, in the form of “Continentals”, as a means to finance the war effort, but due to great inflation from over-printing and counterfeiting, the currency was no longer accepted as legal tender around the time when the note was only worth about 1% of its original value. The other founders besides Madison nearly unanimously agreed that paper money was a form of theft from citizens. In a letter to Thomas Jefferson in 1786, Washington said, regarding paper currency: “Paper money has had the effect in your state that it will ever have, to ruin commerce, oppress the honest, and open the door to every species of fraud and injustice.” The founders believed paper money to be a subversive tax, or a means of stealing wealth from the citizenry through inflation. Somehow, the wicked dishonesty, fraud, and manipulation of paper money (and today, primarily electronic money) through inflation, particularly at the government level, is of no concern to Americans today. Some theorize the guard against this issue may have been found in the Contracts Clause of the Constitution, where it says, “No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts...”. Nevertheless, paper money became the norm after the Civil war for the same reason Continentals were printed for the Revolutionary War, and we honored the founding fathers by putting their faces on the very bills they opposed. As the final nail in the coffin of the first wicked project, Franklin D. Roosevelt abandoned the gold standard to firmly double down on the subversive tax Madison thought the Constitution was designed to protect us from.

Today, we see a majority of the U.S. supportive of the second wicked project in the form of student loan forgiveness. This “wicked” idea seems to be right around the corner, and our country is not yet 250 years old. This raises the question; if Madison truly thought the Constitution as it was written after the convention in 1787 would serve as a bulwark against explicitly those three ideas (among others), how is it that we long ago adopted the first, and are now looking at adopting the second? There must have been a severe miscalculation of how the design of the Constitution would protect against these ideas. The consequences of this miscalculation do not stop at just the three examples Madison provides, which are wicked indeed, but do well to explain the condition our republic is in today, whereby Marxism and its supporters are all of a sudden at the gates of the country that defeated it 30 years ago.

Madison’s miscalculation seems to be rooted in his belief that the vastness and variety of the population in the United States would serve to dilute and drown out factious movements (this is primarily addressed in Federalist 9), and that there would be “variety of parties” under the Constitution. However, neither of these seems to be quite true at this point; our massive country is arguably better connected and functionally smaller than it was at the founding, and we effectively only have two parties. These two miscalculations go hand in hand;. the vastness of the United States which would dilute factious movements was to also be the source of the variety of parties. This was effective to some degree for a while; although there was never truly a diversity of parties, the vastness of the United States did serve to isolate politics in some states from others. However, in many ways, people in New York City today are better connected to people in Los Angeles than they were to folks in Philadelphia in the days the Constitution was written. This has made the United States functionally smaller than it ever was, which severely blunts the effects of our vast and varied populations and aids the rise and connection of similar factious ideas across the entire country. Ideas take little to no time to spread from one place to another. A factious insurrection in one city inspires the same movement in another city within merely hours, perfectly evidenced since the 1619 riots began. They’re often even planned across these distances in real time. Seeing as our country has been made “smaller”, it would naturally follow that institutional changes be made to tackle the issue of faction and insurrection which is more prevalent today than ever before.

Madison also believed we would have multiple parties, partly due to the vastness of the nation. Our system is commonly referred to as a two-party system today, but it’s not necessarily so, which is why the founders had expectations and hopes of there being multiple parties, up until Washington enlightened us as to the reality of the system in his farewell address. However, before delving any deeper into the expectation of multiple parties, I must digress now that the word “party” has begun to come up beside the word “faction”. The topic of Federalist 10, and the mention of “factions” and “parties” always raises the question, although most will simply assume the answer; is there a difference between “faction” and “party”, and if so, what is that difference? In short, yes there is a difference, and it is primarily one of scope. In Federalist 10, Madison defines the term faction as follows:

“By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.”

This, frankly, does not completely clarify the question raised above. This vaguely sounds like the description of a party, however Madison speaks to intent in this definition when he speaks of aversion to the rights of other citizens. Also, we notice that a faction is defined as a “common impulse of passion, or of interest” (both singular), adverse to the “rights” or “aggregate interests” (both plural) of the community. Here, I believe, is where the main distinction lies. Factions differ from parties primarily in that they are focused on more particular issues, while parties often have platforms discussing many issues. George Washington in his farewell address spoke of faction and “party spirit” separately, but in parallel as well. Parties may contain, and do contain, a number of factions within them, with far more specific interests. Madison provides examples of factions and their sources in Federalist 10:

“But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government.”

There are a number of things to take note of here; firstly that Madison mentions the spirit of party and faction, just as Washington did, meaning there is necessarily a difference between them. Also of note is the far more specific nature of the factions he describes. Many of these factions exist today; those who owe student debt are in debt to those who have paid theirs off, or did not assume any to begin with, and form two factions with opposing interests. Landlords and tenants are two ever-enduring factions. We also have factions today that weren’t present then, at least not in the same force. Those who are in favor of abortion opposed to those who are against it. Those who are in favor of private gun ownership and those who are against it. Those who want public ownership of the means of production, or put differently, “equal division of property”, and those who want private ownership of the means of production. These are all separate factions that in some rare cases may lead to the establishment of single parties like the socialist party of the early to mid 20th century, but more than often not fall under the umbrella of one of the two main parties.

Now to return to the topic of the expectation of a variety of parties held by the Founders. Madison believed there would be multiple parties with converging interests that stem primarily from the local level, which, when filtered through the size of the United States, and combined with compromise among the parties, would help deter the negative effects of faction. Our system holds, however, that it is almost futile for a third party to run, as they are unlikely to secure a single electoral vote in a winner-take-all system. In our nation’s history, all third party candidates across all elections have won a combined 345 electoral votes, fewer than some presidents in single elections. As a result, factions, with wicked ideas such as abolishing student debt or the equal division of property, would see more success in holding a party hostage to their support during elections and eventually have their ideas permeate into the mainstream of the party. This is not a new or uncommon phenomenon. This is precisely the effect of intransigent minorities; an effect so powerful it can alter the behavior of entire countries at the behest of 3-5% of the population. We see this effect in our daily lives, both in harmless, acceptable ways, and in harmful ways that should be avoided. One of the simplest, and most harmless ways one sees this effect is on airlines. Nowadays, you’d be hard pressed to find airlines, especially in the United States, that serve peanuts as a snack, although that used to be one of the most common snacks served. However, an intransigent minority, one intolerant of change - those with peanut allergies - cannot and will not eat those snacks and will only eat snacks that don’t contain peanuts. On the other hand, those who would eat the peanuts, don’t mind eating snacks that don’t contain peanuts. So, the airline finds it much easier to simply eliminate peanut snacks altogether and switch to non-peanut snacks, at the behest of the 1% of the U.S. population that has a peanut allergy. It is a harmless, unobtrusive consequence that all are willing to accept for the safety of this 1%, but it does go to exhibit the influence of intransigent minorities. The hundreds of millions of airline passengers are conforming to a small minority of those passengers.

On the other hand, we see the effect of this in the mindless, but immense power of “canceling” prevalent today. A handful of teenagers and “blue checks” on Twitter complain about x, the New York Times and Washington Post run a front-page story saying “x canceled”, CNN blares “x canceled” on their chyrons, and now suddenly “x” has actually been deemed unacceptable to society by no more than 10,000 intolerant people with nothing better to do, while 329.9 million Americans were never interested to begin with. Some 10,000 intransigent people who boycott something or another, can influence what the rest of us see or associate with. This results in a world renowned comedian, Kevin Hart, losing the ability to host the 2019 Oscars over a pointless joke Tweet of his from a decade ago. It results in Land O’Lakes removing the Native American girl on their packaging because it’s “racist”, or Aunt Jemima being rebranded because it’s also “racist”, or canned beans company “Goya” being boycotted because the CEO thanked the president. None of these mattered to the vast majority of people. But factions of 10,000 intolerant people on Twitter, with very specific interests they’re not willing to bend on, are moving mountains. And they, in conjunction with intransigent communists being bred on college campuses for the last twenty years, are moving the Democrat party far to the left. The Democratic party never condemns the behavior of the intransigent minority that controls it. Democratic leaders, including mayors, don’t even condemn the rioting and looting going on in their own cities by open communists and insurrectionists, because this intransigent faction of a few thousand criminals in the streets have a stranglehold on the party as a whole. Those thousands are necessary voters in order to win, but will only vote Democrat if their far left preferences are adopted. The remaining 99% of the party will probably vote Democrat as long as their policies are to the left of the Republican party. So, just like the airlines that no longer have peanuts, the Democrat party will eventually no longer have moderate leaders if this is left to continue.

Had we a system that encouraged the Marxist faction to form a Communist party, for example, we would likely see a party that would at best win a couple seats in Congress, and have little influence on the broad swath of people who want nothing to do with communism. Their wicked ideas would not be able to hide behind a (traditionally) much less extreme Democrat party, and would be addressed head-on. Instead, under our present system, their ideas permeate one of the two major parties, and become normalized ideas that party leaders are incapable of cutting out for fear of political loss. This is plainly evident in the present election cycle; Joe Biden has allied himself with the communist wing of the Democratic party, evidenced by the Biden-Sanders unity platform, so as not to alienate the intolerant minority of the Democratic base, that almost unanimously cast their ballots for Sanders. Sanders himself is a perfect example of the tactic the Marxists are using. Had he run independently, especially in 2016, Sanders would have been utterly disregarded. But since he was given an opportunity to create an intransigent base of support within the Democratic party, the party is now at the behest of Marxists and moving further left with each passing election cycle. Make no mistake; Democrats of just a few years ago were nothing like they are today. Recall that as recently as 2006, Obama and Biden voted for the Secure Fence Act, which funded 700 miles of border wall between the U.S. and Mexico, something Democrats would be found dead before they got behind today. At the time the 2020 Democrat nominee and former president voted for the Secure Fence Act, a majority of Democrats in the general population favored a wall at the border. All of 14 years later, the same man who voted for the Secure Fence Act has been bullied into affording publicly funded healthcare to the very illegal aliens he sought to keep out. Had the communists who existed in the party in 2006 and opposed the wall instead been encouraged to have their own party, it would be highly unlikely they could have turned Democrat approval of the wall on its head, down to 12% today. This is precisely the effect of faction and intransigent minorities. While Repbublican support for the wall has shifted by merely 13% in that same time frame, Democrat support for the wall shifted by a whopping 40% due to intransigent influences from inside the party. Had the radicals in the party been put in a position to defend their views head on rather than diluting them among the Democrat platform, one would wonder how much public opinion would have really shifted.

So what would make sense instead? Our republic is one built on the decentralization of power, and the only solution I see would be to decentralize even further, to keep factious ideas and their supporters from blending in and influencing mainstream ideas. The way I would achieve this would be to apply the electoral system which is used by Maine and Nebraska to every state; the winner of the popular vote for any given state will be awarded two electoral votes, and the remainder of the electoral votes are awarded based on the winner of each congressional district. This rewards candidates for winning states, while also decentralizing the results of the elections within states. This would seemingly go against Madison’s logic in Federalist 10; he did not want to give a great voice to local political factions and reward them with electoral votes for winning on a local level. His intention was to dilute and drown out factious ideas in the vastness of the population and variation of the United States. However, what we’ve seen is that our system encourages local factions to “disguise” themselves as part of a major party and not a faction, and use that to normalize the factious ideas they have. A perfect example is that of “The Squad”. The face of The Squad, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has gone so far as to remark herself: “Oh God, in any other country, Joe Biden and I would not be in the same party, but in America, we are.” This all but blows the cover off of the operation: Marxists, knowing good and well there is no hope for success outside one of the two main parties, decided to use the Democrat party, and now the nominee, as a trojan horse for their ideas. The only means by which to tackle this issue, is to decentralize further, and force these ideas into the open.

Giving a voice to, and thereby forcing radicals and factious leaders out into the open prevents them from hiding within, and hijacking one of our two main parties. It also makes participating in politics more difficult, which it arguably ought to be. At present, a broad swath of people half-heartedly engage in politics, picking a side to vote for and viewing the other as “the enemy”. Having a greater variety of parties makes it more difficult for factions to group up and fight on so many fronts. Giving factions a voice also would force the political middle of the country to compromise in order to avoid the tyranny of factious minorities, in case they need a majority they don’t have. Under a system like that of Maine and Nebraska, in cases where neither presidential candidate gathers 270 electoral votes, more moderate parties and candidates will be preferred. A party of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and the like, would not make it far in our country on the merit of their ideas. Seeing as there is no conceivable way to really eliminate parties altogether without tyranny, which Madison attests to, it would be best to embrace the ideals of the first amendment and create a true “marketplace of ideas”, whereby the monopolies of the two major parties are broken up, and destructive, radical ideologies are incapable of hiding right under our noses until it’s too late.