I'm reading Chernow's Hamilton, and there are so many parallels to current events.
Chiefly, that Hamilton was worried about "mob-rule." He didn't believe the entire electorate was smart enough to see through the personal attacks that were published in multiple papers in every colony. No writers were expected to back anything up with author's names, or any kind of proof: It was an un-moderated media food-fight. There was no way to defend against the relentless attacks from either side.
Hamilton, in fact, was so strong a federalist (believed in a strong, central, national government) that all of the non-federalists (those who wanted each colony to remain independent and strong) attacked him mercilessly, and many incorrect rumors about hamilton were never put to bed.
The Chernow book is one attempt to try to clean up his name and attribute much of our early sucess to him. We are all far more familiar with Jefferson, Adams and Washington. In fact, Washington was not that important, and many people could have served in his limited capacity.
But Hamilton was the rare one who saw that we were going nowhere as independent colonies because none of them could make enough money or borrow enough money to get any solid economic growth off the ground. Had we remaind a loose confederacy, without security and solid banking, we would have dissolved back into monarchy and England would have returned to occupy us again.
ANYWAY, back to mob-rule. It seems to me that's what put frump in office: Half-baked BS rhetoric, lacking facts or understanding. Wow, was Hamilton right! Because he'd be wagging his finger at us now, saying "I told you there wre going to be presidencies like this."
What we have now, that we lacked then, is a solid, experienced judiciary, and so far, most of them have recognized what bull crap frump and his gangsters are, and are not allowing it to run over our democracy. That is our saving grace.
The other thing that might save us is our very strong free press: We will look back at these ugly days and recognize that it was Maddow and WAPO and NYT and the major networks and CNN and MSNBC that insisted on policing the flow of information, trying their best to make sure we don't "roman empire" ourselves into oblivion.
Oh, yeah: And I've got tickets to the show. 
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