You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.IdeasThe nation’s founding document has a blind spot. Trump is making it visible.The founders of the United States wanted a powerful chief executive, but one that was restrained in the use of that power.Credit...Tom Brenner for The New York TimesIdeasWere the Constitution’s Authors a Little Too Optimistic?The nation’s founding document has a blind spot. Trump is making it visible.The founders of the United States wanted a powerful chief executive, but one that was restrained in the use of that power.Credit...Tom Brenner for The New York TimesListen · 11:18 min May 25, 2026The men who drafted the Constitution knew they were playing with fire when they created a novel and powerful new office: the president of the United States.“The first man put at the helm will be a good one,” Benjamin Franklin said at the Constitutional Convention in June 1787, referring to George Washington. “No body knows what sort may come afterward. The executive will be always increasing here, as elsewhere, till it ends in a monarchy.”The framers were not blind to the danger that they were creating a new kind of king, and the Constitution they adopted a few months later tried to strike a balance in inventing what was then a wholly novel office. They wanted a president who was decisive, responsive and responsible. But they also sought to establish a constitutional structure able to constrain a president who aspired to be a monarch.They differed about how to achieve that balance. Alexander Hamilton, who argued in favor of an exceptionally strong president at the convention — he proposed, for instance, that they should serve for life — wrote in The Federalist Papers that there was more to fear from populists than from those committed to a firm and efficient government.“Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics,” he wrote, “the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.”The Constitution’s framers were doubtless brilliant, and the document they drafted has endured. It is the oldest written national constitution still in force anywhere in the world. But, as the nation commemorates its 250th anniversary, some constitutional scholars say the second Trump presidency is calling into question whether the nation’s founding charter and sacred text truly provide the balance the founders wanted.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT