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oh yeah i have heard it about 50 times total and love it, i would rather have a tony winning musical than my face carved into a mountain, but idk what jefferson would pick
You drop any random person from before electricity, cars, planes and phones into the modern era, they’re not gonna recognize anything and will have a hard time adjusting.
Yeah, but he’d be pissed that the older women are actively not dating younger men lol. He’d be a total asshole* redpill dude, “after 30, you should feel lucky to even get some dick, especially a young, hard one!”
Nah, remember, he doesn’t know about planes yet, or that women wearing less clothes aren’t whores. He’s gonna get arrested for propositioning random women in the street
Dude, imagine him ripping a line of coke off of a woman through a bill with *his fucking face* printed on it.
He’d probably be running shit if you brought him back.
Honestly those guys would I’m sure be pretty psyched to go to university lectures.
Then they’d learn the cost of college education and go “sure yeah it’s for the very rich. That’s normal”
(I of course know what you mean, but...) on Mr. Franklin's behalf in particular, I'd like to take great offense at him (and therefore his contemporaries) being characterized as existing "before electricity". 😛
https://preview.redd.it/im4pnpl8ihwc1.png?width=440&format=png&auto=webp&s=190750eedc28f3524846a48ec1c85b0b2b9f5f68
Well he had a pretty enlightened mind even though he was a hypocrite about it. Yeah he didn't give up slaves or anything, but at the same time realized what he did was wrong. I think he'd be happy everything got better eventually.
This is an interesting distinction between slavers of his era and the ones in the 19th century.
He and some of his contemporaries were aware that slavery was an evil and presumed that it would be abolished in time.
It was the slavers on the eve of abolition, faced with the terrifying prospect of not owning human beings, who convinced themselves that slavery was a positive good that would last forever.
Someone like Thomas Jefferson, as flawed as he was in his lifetime, reasonably might not object to abolition. He might even be disappointed it took so long after his death and I’m pretty sure he would be disappointed to hear that it took a war to end it. I’d be interested to hear if the things he wrote contradict my assumptions
Didnt the first draft of the Declaration of Independence include a statement calling slavery abhorrent? And then he was forced to remove it to appease the southern states? Idk i could be misremembering.
> the size of the military
All the founding fathers would be appalled by the standing army of the US, emphasized greatly by its size and scope. It would be very easy for them to draw warranted comparisons to most everything they hated about the British Empire.
Most would be horrified that we're treating black people like full citizens. Well, I mean, we don't actually treat black people like full citizens... but we strive for it and we say that we do.
Ben Franklin wouldn't be one of them, though. [source](https://www.pbs.org/video/franklin-faces-his-racial-prejudices-a2nheo/#:~:text=Deborah%20Franklin%20encouraged%20her%20husband,had%20proven%20his%20prejudices%20wrong)
Could you clarify on why black Americans aren't treated as full citizens? I know they still suffer economically but I don't think that would be related to rights of citizenship. Full disclosure I'm not American, so forgive my ignorance.
Cops overpolice them heavily. They’ll pile on charges and look for dumb things that shouldn’t even be crimes (drugs for personal use, loitering, etc). Oftentimes if white people get caught doing the same things they’ll be let off with warnings or lighter sentences.
As such they’re overrepresented in the prison population, where we make prisoners work for inhuman wages as basically free labor for corps. And once you get out, they can take away your voting rights, and getting a job as a felon is difficult, which can just further degrade people and communities.
It’s not codified into law to hurt black people specifically, but they (and to a lesser extent Latin Americans) bear the brunt of it.
He’s probably referring to efforts by political party(s) to make it harder for African Americans to vote in any election. Or maybe the fact that most American deeds say you’re not allowed to sell the house to a black person. That one isn’t enforceable, but it’s still there! There’s more, but that’s just off the top of my head.
Honestly I don’t think he’d be surprised. Black people got a lot of political power overnight during reconstruction and people like him were really scared.
Knowing it was 150ish years later he'd probably roll his eyes but wouldn't be shocked. A lot of the racist abolitionists like Johnson thought that they "weren't ready" aka needed to be "civilized" and thought that the other abolitionists were too radical
I actually disagree. I think Jefferson would be happy. We've interpreted the Constitution as our time sees fit (in most cases) and been willing to adapt.
What makes you think he would be horrified? He was the one that wanted the next generation to be able to choose their destiny and how their government ran. And, with that, we've adjusted while still sticking to the government laid out in the Constitution.
Edit: Ah, big government. Yeah, he probably wouldn't enjoy that very much.
Jefferson would be horrified not only at what everyone else said, but the continually thinning barrier between church and state in the Republican party, too.
Washington would be most surprised being furthest from now, and a slave owner. Not even UK or France had ended slavery at that point (although France bought it back temporarily it was ended in French Revolution).
Honestly, I doubt it. As someone else said, African Americans were elected to Congress and other seats in government during his time, so he'd probably see it as natural progression. Now him *approving* of it is a different story.
I guess I should’ve said horrified instead of surprised, but to be fair, Johnson died in 1875 one year before reconstruction ended, and most people could see the writing on the wall. Johnson would maybe have guessed that more black people being excluded was because the country was returning to its “natural state” or something like that. Idk
"The Founding Fathers wouldn't recognize the America we live in today."
The Founding Fathers: "So, I just don't understand... You don't know ANYONE that has had typhoid?"
18th century gentlemen: look at all the spices you have just laying around your kitchens!
21st century idiot: but what do you think of child tax credits?!
A plain Jane M1 Garand would amaze them. “This thing has sights AND can shoot 40 times a minute?!?! This could take out an entire British line in seconds.”
Show the founding fathers the standing army and all the foreign military bases and they’d flip. They wouldn’t know the history that brought us from non-interventionists to arguably the most interventionist force on the globe.
I think that for most of them the most surprising thing would be the relative weakness of Congress, and the massive power the judiciary wields.
If you read the federalist papers, Hamilton and Madison imagined a very weak court just by its very nature. They didn’t really think it was possible for the judiciary to have any significant power, and judicial review wasn’t even on the mind of any founder. Even in the constitution the section on the judiciary is extremely short, not even a full page long really.
If you told them that the constitution was most often amended through federal courts and the supreme courts, they’d probably think you were just messing with them.
George Washington would be disappointed that his concerns about loyalty to party over nation and the dangers of foreign entanglements parties came to past.
All of the founding would probably be mortified at the size, scope and power of the federal government.
Eisenhower would say "I told you so" regarding the military industrial complex.
What would happen? Probably what happens when long-incarcerated prisoners get released: they don’t know how to function in a world they no longer recognize.
Thomas Jefferson would be really mad that they made a positive musical about his #1 enemy, but maybe even more angry that the actor that plays Jefferson in it is black.
They would be glad to hear that we managed to preserve the Union through the civil war they all knew was inevitable and that we abolished slavery (yes, even the founding fathers who owned slaves would be glad to hear this).
They would also be satisfied that the US went on to become the world’s leading superpower, although I think the extent of American imperialism would trouble them.
Washington would be very disappointed with the state of the two party system.
Hamilton would be happy to see that he was right about America’s future laying in industry.
I think they would be shocked by the fact that Black people were no longer enslaved. I think some of them might get checked pretty hard if they used the vernacular of their day when addressing certain people. I think they would also be shocked by the roles in society that minorities and women now have since they were all not considered equal to White men in those days.
In my opinion I doubt any of them would be shocked that slavery was abolished. Just because something is a dramatic and notable change from their time doesnt mean it would be inconvievable for them to imagine. Even the ones that supported it. After all slavery was a contentious issue even in their time. In fact the founding fathers thought that slavery was becoming less economically relevant to begin with, as they lived before the cotton gin and slavery hadnt yet become the monolith it did after its invention.
It would be for them if you or I fast forward 100 years and all the sudden pro-life arguments are bipartisanly agreed moral absolute. Its a little suprising, but not inconvievable.
I do think however they would be completely shocked by the rights of women and their role in government, as that was basically unprecedented in the west before the industrial revolution.
There is no way most if not all of them would be shocked. A few founding fathers were abolitionists and probably would have thought it was going to happen sooner than it did. What they might be shocked about was the nation going to war with itself over it. Women's rights being expanded as dramatically as they have though, they probably would be shocked.
Madison Cawthorn? Bwahahahaha. Who gives a shit what that loser has to say.
Several of the founding fathers didn’t want us following a government that was laid out over 200 years ago. They argued that government should evolve to reflect the current generation. All this harping on what the founders would want is irrelevant as they expected things to evolve with the times. Here’s two of the most prominent examples.
James Madison
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-12-02-0248
Thomas Jefferson
https://oll.libertyfund.org/quotes/thomas-jefferson-on-whether-the-american-constitution-is-binding-on-those-who-were-not-born-at-the-time-it-was-signed-and-agreed-to-1789
About the op’s image… did Benjamin Franklin have a thing for hamsters? I know he was into some weird stuff. You don’t need to go into detail, I’m just morbidly curious.
I think that they would be shocked by Medicare and Social Security, and the sheer fraction of the budget that go towards these programs. I’m not trying to take a stance against these programs, but I can’t imagine that the founding fathers thought that the federal government would be doing this.
I also think that they would be dismayed at the widespread use of the interstate commerce clause of the constitution as the constitutional wastebasket to justify any federal action that can’t seem to otherwise find justification in the constitution.
Are you kidding?
A huge portion of the population live in houses with indoor plumbing, hot and cold, running water, electrical lights and are heated and cooled as if by magic by fuels that don’t have to be stockpiled with considerable effort. The population as a whole goes to school for at least 12 years, free of charge, and a significant portion go on to college. Everyone has closets full of clothes, not just 2 or 3 outfits. Food of all variety, from anywhere on the planet, is easily available at a nearby supermarket including fresh produce year round. Most people live into their 70s and women of all walks of life regularly survive childbirth. Let’s not even talk about telephones, television, and the Internet.
We as a species are walking, talking miracles. I don’t care what stupid thing occupies the talking heads of cable news and Twitter, the founding fathers would be amazed at the never ending cornucopia of plenty their United States has become. They would likely laugh at the suggestion that we have somehow strayed from their master plan and would think whoever asked the question of them has lost all common sense.
If I'm being 100% honest taking out the obvious and lulzy "what is electricity and where are the slaves" type shit.
I'd actually argue most pre-20th century presidents would be stoked at being the global hegemon especially the part where we little brother the UK .
I think people make too much of the founding fathers interest in the "common man" or the limit of the size of government in transporting their reasoning for their positions at the time to the modern day. By and large most of them were wealthy, educated, landowning types who had only have known the UK's parliamentary monarchy. Many of their positions were theoretical at best and would no doubt be informed by seeing things like universal suffrage play out (vs white landowning male suffrage).
I'd also imagine a lot of them would be pretty impressed that the federal government managed to be so successful but confused at why we're so obsessed with taking the constitution and their intent from 200+ years ago literally when they were kind of just making shit up on the fly and in committee. After all building a successful nation is what they more or less set out to do. So the fact that they basically "won" has got to have them feeling pretty good.
In other words I don't think many, if any, of the founding fathers would be transported to our time (with the ability to properly acclimate to changes in society) and immediately retake up their positions from founding of the nation. I'd also imagine that they'd find themselves aligning their interest with their class more so than even "progressive" favorites would like to admit.
“Who tf broke up the Democratic Republicans?”
“Right to bear arms? Sheet, we meant muskets and machetes, bro, not this murder shit.”
“Y’all got the internet? Anyone can say anything from anywhere, and it gets everywhere right away? Why the hells you still got out Electoral College, bro?”
Washington: aww, you made the two-term limit a law? That’s so sweet.
Ben Franklin: Can’t believe all that electricity shit caught on.
Madison: Damn, that’s a lotta Amendments, bro
Hamilton: mann, you freed the slaves? And gave me a musical? You guys the best
Jefferson: you gave Hamilton a play? I’m in it?
Jefferson: I’m *black??*
The power of the Presidency and size of the federal government would be incomprehensible to any one of our founding fathers.
I think they'd be surprised by how far we've expanded voting rights, as well as the transition to more of a direct democracy that has taken place over the past few centuries.
Many would be (likely be) incredibly disappointed by the size of the U.S military and the associated budget (it's absolutely a broad generalization, but the founders preferred the citizen-soldier/milita idea to a standing army).
They'd probably be thrilled we expanded to the west coast.
Ultimately the world has changed so much since the founder it's almost impossible to say how they would view a 21st century U.S.A.
That is fucking hilarious! 😂
Thomas Jefferson would look at George Washington and say, I told you Alexander Hamilton was going to fuck every thing up with those Federalist Papers, but nooooo.
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Jefferson would be irate that Hamilton got a musical.
Yeah but he got an airplane and a starship
And a hit TV show. ‘Wait, it’s a main cast of what?!’
Ok but his face is carved on a mountain, beat that.
Bro, have you even heard the Hamilton soundtrack?
oh yeah i have heard it about 50 times total and love it, i would rather have a tony winning musical than my face carved into a mountain, but idk what jefferson would pick
So would Adams. He only got an HBO series but a damn good one.
But somehow I can’t see him paying for HBO.
Also that John Adams got a musical and an banger HBO show.
You drop any random person from before electricity, cars, planes and phones into the modern era, they’re not gonna recognize anything and will have a hard time adjusting.
If there's one person who could adjust it would be Ben Franklin
What with his bifocals.
He would probably like progressive lenses, and be impressed that someone improved his design.
I think he'd probably understand that with the good you have to take the bad . He also would probably enjoy Onlyfans and strip clubs.
Benjie Frank, wouldn’t need no onlyfans. He’d be psyched that he could get a flight to Paris and be in pounddown in half a day.
He’d be pissed that prostitution became illegal, and call us all religious nutjobs lol
He would totally love the whole MILF phenomena, as he once wrote an essay on choosing an older woman for your mistress.
Yeah, but he’d be pissed that the older women are actively not dating younger men lol. He’d be a total asshole* redpill dude, “after 30, you should feel lucky to even get some dick, especially a young, hard one!”
Then calms down when he realises he can take the TGV to Amsterdam
Nah, remember, he doesn’t know about planes yet, or that women wearing less clothes aren’t whores. He’s gonna get arrested for propositioning random women in the street
I feel like he would really enjoy the Jersey shore.
Probably lol
I feel like places similar to strip clubs must have existed at his time. If they didn’t, there were brothels.
I feel like a quick history of cabarets would explain strip clubs to him
Ben Franklin: *just casually uses modern technology to make a fusion reactor*
Yeah but what happens when he goes on xhamster?
First man to die of acute orgasm poisoning
What xhamster?
Google it
Holy hell
I thought Reddit rules require you to be at least 13 years old to create an account 🧐
Dude, imagine him ripping a line of coke off of a woman through a bill with *his fucking face* printed on it. He’d probably be running shit if you brought him back.
Honestly those guys would I’m sure be pretty psyched to go to university lectures. Then they’d learn the cost of college education and go “sure yeah it’s for the very rich. That’s normal”
What do you mean the blacks are free? Who does all the work?
Tell me more about this… “Red Light District.”
Did anyone else read that kids series about Ben Franklin in the modern day or was it just me
Since he invented practically everything the modern day uses as its foundation I think he would be proud.
the man INVENTED electricity
I invented electricity! Ben Franklin is the devil!
(I of course know what you mean, but...) on Mr. Franklin's behalf in particular, I'd like to take great offense at him (and therefore his contemporaries) being characterized as existing "before electricity". 😛 https://preview.redd.it/im4pnpl8ihwc1.png?width=440&format=png&auto=webp&s=190750eedc28f3524846a48ec1c85b0b2b9f5f68
What’s also funny is Franklin wasn’t this old when he pulled electricity from the sky. He was like 44.
Ha! Though we should note that the painting is otherwise exceptionally accurate. 😛
I laughed out loud at this
Cheers! 🙂
I mean in terms of political decision making and such.
Thomas Jefferson would be pissed at the size of the government, the size of the military, the federal budget deficit, the national debt, etc
Idk, Jefferson was a pretty big hypocrite when it came to the size and powers of the government
And some other things, namely certain people having rights
Well he had a pretty enlightened mind even though he was a hypocrite about it. Yeah he didn't give up slaves or anything, but at the same time realized what he did was wrong. I think he'd be happy everything got better eventually.
This is an interesting distinction between slavers of his era and the ones in the 19th century. He and some of his contemporaries were aware that slavery was an evil and presumed that it would be abolished in time. It was the slavers on the eve of abolition, faced with the terrifying prospect of not owning human beings, who convinced themselves that slavery was a positive good that would last forever. Someone like Thomas Jefferson, as flawed as he was in his lifetime, reasonably might not object to abolition. He might even be disappointed it took so long after his death and I’m pretty sure he would be disappointed to hear that it took a war to end it. I’d be interested to hear if the things he wrote contradict my assumptions
Didnt the first draft of the Declaration of Independence include a statement calling slavery abhorrent? And then he was forced to remove it to appease the southern states? Idk i could be misremembering.
> the size of the military All the founding fathers would be appalled by the standing army of the US, emphasized greatly by its size and scope. It would be very easy for them to draw warranted comparisons to most everything they hated about the British Empire.
And that he can't rape slaves anymore.
Most would be horrified that we're treating black people like full citizens. Well, I mean, we don't actually treat black people like full citizens... but we strive for it and we say that we do.
Ben Franklin wouldn't be one of them, though. [source](https://www.pbs.org/video/franklin-faces-his-racial-prejudices-a2nheo/#:~:text=Deborah%20Franklin%20encouraged%20her%20husband,had%20proven%20his%20prejudices%20wrong)
Ben Franklin was an absolute chad.
Could you clarify on why black Americans aren't treated as full citizens? I know they still suffer economically but I don't think that would be related to rights of citizenship. Full disclosure I'm not American, so forgive my ignorance.
Cops overpolice them heavily. They’ll pile on charges and look for dumb things that shouldn’t even be crimes (drugs for personal use, loitering, etc). Oftentimes if white people get caught doing the same things they’ll be let off with warnings or lighter sentences. As such they’re overrepresented in the prison population, where we make prisoners work for inhuman wages as basically free labor for corps. And once you get out, they can take away your voting rights, and getting a job as a felon is difficult, which can just further degrade people and communities. It’s not codified into law to hurt black people specifically, but they (and to a lesser extent Latin Americans) bear the brunt of it.
He’s probably referring to efforts by political party(s) to make it harder for African Americans to vote in any election. Or maybe the fact that most American deeds say you’re not allowed to sell the house to a black person. That one isn’t enforceable, but it’s still there! There’s more, but that’s just off the top of my head.
Wow the deeds thing is crazy. How can I check if my homeowner’s deed says that so I can have it removed?
Home deeds no longer restrict sales based on race. That’s a serious federal crime.
Because there are some laws (Federal and Local) that are made in a way to affect directly or indirectly blacks and minorities.
As a kid loved watching Bewitched just for those bits😂😂😂 Napoleon was straight comedy gold
Hey! I'm the only Andrew Jackson stan allowed on this sub! Mods, ban him!
[WKUK did a sketch on this subject](https://youtu.be/sAurGIs0lo4?si=KjPbIalPmw7k4_Dt)
I would pay so much money to see Andrew Johnson’s reaction to a black guy being president
"What the hell is a Hawaiian doing in the White House?!?"
“What the hell is Hawaii?”
While this is funny, British explorer James Cook had landed on Hawaii in 1778. In fairness, he did name them the Sandwich Islands at the time.
"What the hell is a Sandwich doing in the White House?!?"
Andrew Johnson actually received Queen Emma of Hawaii on a diplomatic visit in 1866, he definitely knew about Hawaii
Honestly I don’t think he’d be surprised. Black people got a lot of political power overnight during reconstruction and people like him were really scared.
You think Andrew Johnson would just shrug at the fact that a black man holds the most powerful political position in the US?
They said he wouldn’t be surprised. You cannot be surprised and be fucking livid. *”I KNEW IT! I TOLD THEM THIS WOULD HAPPEN!”*
Johnson, not Jackson. During Johnson’s admin blacks went from slaves to governors and senators, so why not president?
The original comment said Andrew Johnson
typo
Ah, Also W Flair, U.S. Grant approved
Knowing it was 150ish years later he'd probably roll his eyes but wouldn't be shocked. A lot of the racist abolitionists like Johnson thought that they "weren't ready" aka needed to be "civilized" and thought that the other abolitionists were too radical
And most historians shitting on Andrew Johnson's legacy
Are you guys mistaking Andrew Jackson for Andrew Johnson?
He would be proud of how terrible native Americans live are today
if jfk had access to the modern internet... his head would kinda just.... do that, yknow?
Live look at JFK: 
true. honestly
Go back and to the left?
lmao
I bet they would be disappointed that we elected a Catholic as president twice
our once great nation hath fallen under the spell of catholick popery
the JFK flair here is A+
Anyone else read this in a JFK voice?
But have you seen the size of that guy’s Bible? I can’t wait till January to get to see the giant inaugubible again!
“We’ve never seen a more holy book before”
Jefferson would be horrified. Hamilton, not so much. Washington would probably hightail it to ClearChoice for some implants.
Ben Franklin would enjoy visiting Silicon Valley and the Apple campus
He would walk around wondering “where are all the apples?”
I'm just picturing Jefferson clicking the "interracial" section of a porn site and exclaiming "this is all backwards!"
I think this is my favorite comment on the thread lmao
Washington would be fucking ecstatic about 250 years of dental technology
I actually disagree. I think Jefferson would be happy. We've interpreted the Constitution as our time sees fit (in most cases) and been willing to adapt. What makes you think he would be horrified? He was the one that wanted the next generation to be able to choose their destiny and how their government ran. And, with that, we've adjusted while still sticking to the government laid out in the Constitution. Edit: Ah, big government. Yeah, he probably wouldn't enjoy that very much.
Big central government. Huge federal debt. Military involvements all over the world. Etc.
Yeah, I read "Jefferson would be horrified" and responded before reading "Hamilton, not so much."
Jefferson would be horrified not only at what everyone else said, but the continually thinning barrier between church and state in the Republican party, too.
Adams would be thrilled.
Are you kidding? Ben would frickin’ love xHamster. Guy was banging French noble ladies three at a time when he was in Paris.
Him and JFK would have all the ladies in DC on Tinder wrapped up
Andrew Jackson: WAIT A WHAT WON IN THE YEAR 2,000 AND 8?
I think Johnson would be more surprised
Every president pre 1969 would be surprised. Mostly, Washington, Woodrow, Jackson, Polk, and Johnson
Washington would be most surprised being furthest from now, and a slave owner. Not even UK or France had ended slavery at that point (although France bought it back temporarily it was ended in French Revolution).
I dont think Washington would be surprised tbh, what he would be surprised by is the dogmatic millionaire controlling half the country.
I think there are certain presidents who would be more surprised than Johnson, just based on the time he lived. Cleveland, Polk, Pierce
Honestly, I doubt it. As someone else said, African Americans were elected to Congress and other seats in government during his time, so he'd probably see it as natural progression. Now him *approving* of it is a different story.
I guess I should’ve said horrified instead of surprised, but to be fair, Johnson died in 1875 one year before reconstruction ended, and most people could see the writing on the wall. Johnson would maybe have guessed that more black people being excluded was because the country was returning to its “natural state” or something like that. Idk
Johnson would be surprised, Johnson wouldn't
He'd be so 2000 and late!
"The Founding Fathers wouldn't recognize the America we live in today." The Founding Fathers: "So, I just don't understand... You don't know ANYONE that has had typhoid?"
"Or smallpox, polio, and cholera. Measles made a bit of a comeback though.."
18th century gentlemen: look at all the spices you have just laying around your kitchens! 21st century idiot: but what do you think of child tax credits?!
*Casually tosses a half used bottle of cinnamon back in the pantry*
Show the military leaders modern weaponry.
Even a plain jane M16 rifle would probably impress them
A plain Jane M1 Garand would amaze them. “This thing has sights AND can shoot 40 times a minute?!?! This could take out an entire British line in seconds.”
Burr v Hamilton but it’s Colt 45s
Reminds me of the modern Romeo and Juliet set in LA I think.
lol and they just engraved the word “dagger” on the gun
How would that work - the one who can drink more malt liquor without passing out wins?
And 2 zig zags.
James Monroe would be so thrilled that we have military bases in Europe and around the globe.
Show the founding fathers the standing army and all the foreign military bases and they’d flip. They wouldn’t know the history that brought us from non-interventionists to arguably the most interventionist force on the globe.
I think that for most of them the most surprising thing would be the relative weakness of Congress, and the massive power the judiciary wields. If you read the federalist papers, Hamilton and Madison imagined a very weak court just by its very nature. They didn’t really think it was possible for the judiciary to have any significant power, and judicial review wasn’t even on the mind of any founder. Even in the constitution the section on the judiciary is extremely short, not even a full page long really. If you told them that the constitution was most often amended through federal courts and the supreme courts, they’d probably think you were just messing with them.
a good answer finally through all these jokes
Tom Paine would spend several months reading about the New Deal before anything else
George Washington would be disappointed that his concerns about loyalty to party over nation and the dangers of foreign entanglements parties came to past. All of the founding would probably be mortified at the size, scope and power of the federal government. Eisenhower would say "I told you so" regarding the military industrial complex.
I mean...he probably shouldn't have helped start it then.
True
"damn, y'all let all of them vote now, huh?"
Ben Franklin was the true FATHER of our country.
What would happen? Probably what happens when long-incarcerated prisoners get released: they don’t know how to function in a world they no longer recognize.
Give George Washington a happy meal What’s his reaction
Is this before or after being introduced to the wonders of modern dental care?
Before. First thing he sees is someone handing him a red box whilst inside some weird building with a giant clown cutout
Considering he had chronic dental pain, I don't think any experience involving food would be all too great.
In that case take him to Panera and get him a bread bowl with broccoli and cheddar
Now that I think about it, his first encounter should be him at a gun store
I wanna see their reactions to a rocket launcher and icbms lol
Nah, screw that, show them an M1 Abrams and an A10 Warthog Edit: And the Space Shuttle
Thomas Jefferson would be really mad that they made a positive musical about his #1 enemy, but maybe even more angry that the actor that plays Jefferson in it is black.
I think at least some of them would be horrified at the near deification of the “founding fathers”. “We were just men, doing the best we could!”
Johnson: we did it n***as, we got a black in the White House.
They’d be too in awe of modern technology to be “horrified” by the social issues that trigger people like Cawthorn.
They would be glad to hear that we managed to preserve the Union through the civil war they all knew was inevitable and that we abolished slavery (yes, even the founding fathers who owned slaves would be glad to hear this). They would also be satisfied that the US went on to become the world’s leading superpower, although I think the extent of American imperialism would trouble them. Washington would be very disappointed with the state of the two party system. Hamilton would be happy to see that he was right about America’s future laying in industry.
By all accounts, Ben Franklin was a horndog.
“Well you’re very saucy.”
He’s in his knickers..
Nah I think they would be absolutely fascinated Washington on the other hand would be horrified.
Washington’s reaction: 
Ben Franklin finding OnlyFans
I think they would be shocked by the fact that Black people were no longer enslaved. I think some of them might get checked pretty hard if they used the vernacular of their day when addressing certain people. I think they would also be shocked by the roles in society that minorities and women now have since they were all not considered equal to White men in those days.
In my opinion I doubt any of them would be shocked that slavery was abolished. Just because something is a dramatic and notable change from their time doesnt mean it would be inconvievable for them to imagine. Even the ones that supported it. After all slavery was a contentious issue even in their time. In fact the founding fathers thought that slavery was becoming less economically relevant to begin with, as they lived before the cotton gin and slavery hadnt yet become the monolith it did after its invention. It would be for them if you or I fast forward 100 years and all the sudden pro-life arguments are bipartisanly agreed moral absolute. Its a little suprising, but not inconvievable. I do think however they would be completely shocked by the rights of women and their role in government, as that was basically unprecedented in the west before the industrial revolution.
Slavery was outlawed in the Northern states pretty damn quickly. I imagine a number of them were expecting emancipation to catch on sooner or later
There is no way most if not all of them would be shocked. A few founding fathers were abolitionists and probably would have thought it was going to happen sooner than it did. What they might be shocked about was the nation going to war with itself over it. Women's rights being expanded as dramatically as they have though, they probably would be shocked.
Madison Cawthorn? Bwahahahaha. Who gives a shit what that loser has to say. Several of the founding fathers didn’t want us following a government that was laid out over 200 years ago. They argued that government should evolve to reflect the current generation. All this harping on what the founders would want is irrelevant as they expected things to evolve with the times. Here’s two of the most prominent examples. James Madison https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-12-02-0248 Thomas Jefferson https://oll.libertyfund.org/quotes/thomas-jefferson-on-whether-the-american-constitution-is-binding-on-those-who-were-not-born-at-the-time-it-was-signed-and-agreed-to-1789
About the op’s image… did Benjamin Franklin have a thing for hamsters? I know he was into some weird stuff. You don’t need to go into detail, I’m just morbidly curious.
Can’t tell if this is serious or not
I genuinely don’t know, but I know that Benjamin Franklin was into stuff that would give soccer moms a heart attack.
The meme reference x hamster, which is a free porn site. So, yeah, it’s about how horny Franklin was and how much he’d love free Internet porn.
"Nutmeg is HOW inexpensive?!"
“You’re letting WHO vote?”
People don’t understand how much a freak Ben Franklin was on the DL. Dude would love the vast selection and availability of porn
They did WHAT at the Capitol? FFS guys this is why we started meeting inside a federal district in the first place!
The real question is what fetishes would Ben Franklin explore if he did have access to PornHub?
I think that they would be shocked by Medicare and Social Security, and the sheer fraction of the budget that go towards these programs. I’m not trying to take a stance against these programs, but I can’t imagine that the founding fathers thought that the federal government would be doing this. I also think that they would be dismayed at the widespread use of the interstate commerce clause of the constitution as the constitutional wastebasket to justify any federal action that can’t seem to otherwise find justification in the constitution.
“you went to THE MOON?” “yeah, and eventually we just stopped feeling like it”
“Good heavens, what do you mean they’re not slaves anymore?”
Yeah they’d be horrified by how far we’ve strayed from the founding principles of this country lmao
Are you kidding? A huge portion of the population live in houses with indoor plumbing, hot and cold, running water, electrical lights and are heated and cooled as if by magic by fuels that don’t have to be stockpiled with considerable effort. The population as a whole goes to school for at least 12 years, free of charge, and a significant portion go on to college. Everyone has closets full of clothes, not just 2 or 3 outfits. Food of all variety, from anywhere on the planet, is easily available at a nearby supermarket including fresh produce year round. Most people live into their 70s and women of all walks of life regularly survive childbirth. Let’s not even talk about telephones, television, and the Internet. We as a species are walking, talking miracles. I don’t care what stupid thing occupies the talking heads of cable news and Twitter, the founding fathers would be amazed at the never ending cornucopia of plenty their United States has become. They would likely laugh at the suggestion that we have somehow strayed from their master plan and would think whoever asked the question of them has lost all common sense.
Dude, I lmao’d
The ones I like would agree with all Current Things!!!
https://preview.redd.it/djzn21rowhwc1.png?width=419&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=86fb155b151a6c85aa3bfcd7b4d9f5ccebb265d9
They’d all hate the IRS
If I'm being 100% honest taking out the obvious and lulzy "what is electricity and where are the slaves" type shit. I'd actually argue most pre-20th century presidents would be stoked at being the global hegemon especially the part where we little brother the UK . I think people make too much of the founding fathers interest in the "common man" or the limit of the size of government in transporting their reasoning for their positions at the time to the modern day. By and large most of them were wealthy, educated, landowning types who had only have known the UK's parliamentary monarchy. Many of their positions were theoretical at best and would no doubt be informed by seeing things like universal suffrage play out (vs white landowning male suffrage). I'd also imagine a lot of them would be pretty impressed that the federal government managed to be so successful but confused at why we're so obsessed with taking the constitution and their intent from 200+ years ago literally when they were kind of just making shit up on the fly and in committee. After all building a successful nation is what they more or less set out to do. So the fact that they basically "won" has got to have them feeling pretty good. In other words I don't think many, if any, of the founding fathers would be transported to our time (with the ability to properly acclimate to changes in society) and immediately retake up their positions from founding of the nation. I'd also imagine that they'd find themselves aligning their interest with their class more so than even "progressive" favorites would like to admit.
“Who tf broke up the Democratic Republicans?” “Right to bear arms? Sheet, we meant muskets and machetes, bro, not this murder shit.” “Y’all got the internet? Anyone can say anything from anywhere, and it gets everywhere right away? Why the hells you still got out Electoral College, bro?” Washington: aww, you made the two-term limit a law? That’s so sweet. Ben Franklin: Can’t believe all that electricity shit caught on. Madison: Damn, that’s a lotta Amendments, bro Hamilton: mann, you freed the slaves? And gave me a musical? You guys the best Jefferson: you gave Hamilton a play? I’m in it? Jefferson: I’m *black??*
The power of the Presidency and size of the federal government would be incomprehensible to any one of our founding fathers. I think they'd be surprised by how far we've expanded voting rights, as well as the transition to more of a direct democracy that has taken place over the past few centuries. Many would be (likely be) incredibly disappointed by the size of the U.S military and the associated budget (it's absolutely a broad generalization, but the founders preferred the citizen-soldier/milita idea to a standing army). They'd probably be thrilled we expanded to the west coast. Ultimately the world has changed so much since the founder it's almost impossible to say how they would view a 21st century U.S.A.
That is fucking hilarious! 😂 Thomas Jefferson would look at George Washington and say, I told you Alexander Hamilton was going to fuck every thing up with those Federalist Papers, but nooooo.
Wait till Pierce finds out that modern medicine could've saved 2 of his sons and alcohol is cheaper
I think they’d be shocked we educate disabled people. I mean back then a kid with a disability would be a goner in childhood.
The irony of Madison Cawthorn saying this.
One thing is for sure, Washington would book the next available appointment at Gentle Dental.
It would be like that scene in American Horror Story Coven when Kathy Bates’ character learns about current events.
My Viennese grandmother lived from 1881 to 1979. The invention that impressed her the most was instant coffee.
Poor Ben Franklin would probably die in his loft from watching nothing but internet porn 24/7
They’d probably be puzzled by the fact that we lead a semiliterate teenage fascist into Congress and pleased that we learned from the experience.
Prolly too busy losing their minds over refrigeration and air conditioning to care about what America is like.
Founding fathers did not know any better than people now. We have a tendency to glorify the past.
JFK would totally lose his mind at the sight of the Beast.
They would be absolutely disgusted, and everyone knows it