Before we begin, a word about what you’re about to hear.
This essay, The Fear of Faction, returns us to one of the central anxieties of the American Founding. Not disagreement. Not debate. But faction, organized self interest elevated above the common good.
Drawing on Madison’s warning in Federalist No. 10 and Washington’s sober caution in his Farewell Address, this piece asks a simple but unsettling question. What happens when the force the Constitution was designed to restrain becomes something we reward?
This isn’t a partisan critique. It’s a structural one. It looks at ambition, identity, and loyalty through the lens of constitutional design. It explores how friction was built into the system on purpose, and how that friction weakens when ambition aligns with faction rather than checking it.
If the republic feels strained, this essay asks us to consider whether the strain is accidental, or whether it flows from a deeper shift in what we value.
Let’s begin.
