Wealth Is Not Talent

I've been following Jared Yates Sexton on Twitter since January 2017, when he was on the ground during the presidential inauguration. I somehow missed him before that, though he had been attending Mulligan rallies throughout the campaign. A working-class Indiana native, Sexton is now an associate professor of creative writing at Georgia Southern University and has become a political writer.

I've cited him in my Twitter roundups pretty consistently since then, but I'm not sure I've ever had a full post that's just about one of his threads. So today, that changes.

It's a mistake to say the Founders meant to prevent a Donald Trump from becoming president. They designed our government specifically to be run by and for the wealthy. The mistake they made was in thinking that the wealthy were inherently more talented or more capable.

In the debate over how the government should work, they consistently criticized the citizens and thought the wealthy made much more responsible keepers of liberty. They were wrong. Wealth doesn't show talent, it doesn't show acumen. All it shows is wealth.

They thought someone who had wealth and property would be both intelligent and loyal. They were wrong on both counts, and they structured the government in an effort to bolster this mistake. Two hundred and thirty years have been dedicated to continuing that mistake.

So, the next time someone says the Founders would be horrified, remember they wanted this government as an apparatus specifically guided by and serving the wealthy. This is what they wanted, they just didn't understand what they wanted and what we have is a result of that.

It's hard to look at American history and realize that the system itself, from the very beginning was faulty, but it's also liberating. We can make this better. We don't have to be hampered by tradition. We can create something more humane and fair.

 That last paragraph is key.