How to make humanity immune from human frailty. What do you expect a nation of “citizen politicians” to look like? Do you really think politicians in the early days of the republic, when they really were citizens with primary jobs away from their political offices, weren’t equally corruptible, susceptible to temptations of power, all that?

With all the back and forth over Hunter Biden, not many people would deny that he’d profited off his name and the half century his dad spent in office. I’ve generally not been a big term limit guy, but I confess I may need to rethink that, as that is the best or only defense against this sort of thing.

Democracies are comprised of flawed human beings. There are ways to avoid influence peddling and the like, but they all tend to fall under the category of “autocracy”, and the influence peddling is just done by fewer power-elites.

Honestly, what we really need is more realistic expectations of a democratic republic of 350 million people across a wide, varied continent.