#DoYourJob

Y’all know what a fan I am of the Founding Fathers and how they built the framework of this bold experiment in self-government based on their experience with Mother England. Checks and balances in the distribution of powers; separation of church and state; protection against unreasonable search and seizure; the absolute right to trial by jury—careful provisions for creating a country that would not perpetuate the elements they'd seen in an unjust ruler.

They were products of their times, so, yeah—they built human chattel slavery into the firmware of the state, and it never occurred to them (Abigail Adams to the contrary notwithstanding) that women would expect to take part in political dialog. I suspect they also never imagined heavier-than-air flight, AR-15s or breakfast burritos.

But even as they struggled with constructing this new nation they anticipated that things might come along that would require adjustments, the specifics of which they could not predict; so they included provisions for adapting the government of the people to be truly for the people. And over the years, we as a nation ended slavery, experimented with teetotalism, then decided that wasn’t working and revoked it. And blow me if there’s not a woman running for President these days.

But over the past few years I’ve come to the very disheartening conclusion that there’s one horror that the Founding Fathers failed to provide protection against. Because it would not have been possible, on the darkest night of their deepest winter of discontent, for them to imagine that there would come a time when the men (and women) entrusted by the people of this nation with the honor and responsibility of representing us in the legislative branch would not do their fucking jobs.

That we would witness via every channel of mass media senators and congressmorons declining to bring critical legislation to the floor and instead spending months and millions on spurious “investigations” into events that don’t suit their ideology? Refusing to even begin the process of considering an appointment to a vacant Supreme Court seat and presenting that refusal as a matter of principle? Pouting like teenaged girls who didn’t get picked for the cheerleader squad, and spend their resulting free time passing around vicious gossip about the ones who did? Performing political theatre like marionettes on strings jerked by corporate puppetmasters?

Can you feature Jefferson, Monroe, Hamilton, Jay or Adams sitting down in a tavern together, lifting a glass of claret and suddenly bolting up to cry, “I say, chaps—should we make some provision for the possibility that those elected go completely gaga and don’t fulfill the duties of office for, oh, days at a time? Or what if senators and representatives just—I don’t know—use their office to line their own pockets? Should we…?” There would have been such a roar of laughter as to shake the walls of buildings three streets over. That kind of dereliction would have been inconceivable to them.

In the days following 9/11, there was a joke circulating that went approximately like this: Osama Bin Laden is killed and arrives in paradise to be met by George Washington, who punches him in the nose. Then Patrick Henry gives him a knee to the groin, followed by John Randolph of Roanoke, who jabs an elbow to the ribs. Then Monroe, Madison, Jefferson and…

Bin Laden lies writhing on the ground and whimpers, “This isn’t what I was promised. What’s going on?”

An angel tells him, “I told you there would be 72 Virginians waiting for you. What were you expecting?”

Would that those Virginians and their comrades could visit the Capitol and perform a bit of head-shaping for those disgraceful, worthless, craven occupants who—between all 535 of them—couldn’t come up with enough of a backbone to support the principles embodied in the first five Amendments to the Constitution.

Or, as this video (created more than four months ago, but still accurate) puts it: