The core democratic ideal of reaching consensus through respectful listening and dialogue was not a European invention. Joy Harjo points out that these principles were directly modeled on the political structures of Native nations, highlighting a foundational, yet often ignored, contribution to American governance.

The late 19th-century movement for international arbitration was heavily associated with female activists. Opponents successfully cast diplomacy as a "feminized" weakness, arguing that war was necessary to reassert masculine virtues and authority in American politics and counter women's growing influence.

America's system of nearly 10,000 banks is not a market inefficiency but a direct result of the founding fathers' aversion to centralized, oligopolistic British banks. They deliberately architected a fractured system to prevent the concentration of financial power and to better serve local business people, a principle that still shapes the economy today.

The Constitution lacks an "immigration clause." The Supreme Court established this authority as an "inherent power" derived from national sovereignty, not specific text. This plenary power, created by judicial interpretation, is assigned to Congress.

The legislative process is notoriously slow, but this is an intentional feature. The Constitution's structure creates a deliberative, messy process to ensure that laws with nationwide impact are not passed hastily. This "inefficiency" functions as a crucial check on power, forcing negotiation and preventing rapid, potentially harmful policy shifts.

Beyond headline-grabbing scandals, the most insidious impact of a kleptocratic administration is its refusal to enforce existing laws, from financial regulations to anti-corruption acts. This quiet dismantling of the legal framework fosters a culture of impunity where bad actors thrive, ultimately harming ordinary people and destabilizing the entire system.

The US has historically benefited from a baseline level of high competence in its government officials, regardless of party. This tradition is now eroding, being replaced by a focus on loyalty over expertise. This degradation from competence to acolytes poses a significant, underrecognized threat to national stability and global standing.

Historian Anne Applebaum observes that significant US constitutional amendments often follow profound national traumas like the Revolution or the Civil War. This suggests that without a similar large-scale crisis, mustering the collective will to address deep-seated issues like systemic corruption is historically difficult, as there is no single moment of reckoning.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, racism was not just socially acceptable but academically esteemed. Fields like phrenology and eugenics were considered legitimate sciences pursued by the era's leading intellectuals. This presents a stark inversion of modern values, where intellectualism is aligned with anti-racism.