You wake up as one of the founding fathers during the closing days of the American Revolution...

You wake up as one of the founding fathers during the closing days of the American Revolution. You have all their memories and all of your current ones. What do?

Do everything in my power to empower, radicalise, and spread the New England town meetings that will spread throughout the country during the revolution.

nothing

agitate for abolishing slavery and support land redistribution to the landless.
Also stop fucking with the native americans.

Remember to support Shays rebellion and to stab the other founding fathers in the back during that rebellion.

Announce myself as a time traveler and try to become god emperor of America.

I would strangle Thomas Jefferson to death.

go tell the indians they need to get their shit together asap and teach them about disease and hygiene. maybe encourage them to help orchestrate slave revolts

...

go get a drink

I think there is an episode of southpark where cartman goes back in time and gets them to write that every Wednesday is free taco day

This is all you could really do tbh.

Kill George Washington, make sure my buddy Thomas Paine sticks around.

kill everyone

I would explain how plurality voting and single-member representative districts necessarily result in a duopoly of only two political parties and stress the importance of proportional representation of political parties in enabling a responsive democracy.

Kill myself

Thomas Jefferson already existed user.

I'm OP, I think I should clarify that you can choose which founding father you wake up as, and you only have the memories of the founding father you choose.

Okay then, who was the most influential? Washington, Hamilton, or Jefferson?

Hamilton would probably be the happiest with what America has become today.

Obviously the first thing I do is write a critique of capitalism a century before Marx.

Maybe I'll even become known as the founder of economics before Adam Smith.

This, write Das Kapital before Marx

The Hidden Wealth of Nations by Alexander Hamilton

Alternatively

Pretty much this

Abolish slavery ASAP. That shit's going to bite us in the ass later unless we do something about it. I guess it would also be fair to start advocating for more workers rights.

They wouldn't understand what you're saying since there haven't been any political parties formed nor does anyone intend to start any yet

Madison, Hamilton and Washington would never be seen again

Also would try to have Thomas Paine help with the constitution instead of going to france.

This.

That's okay, future generations will eventually use my writings and the "founding fathers are always right" argument wouldn't work against it.

Also make sure to cut off all tides with slave trade. Argue against the imperialism of the Brits, publish anarchist literature and propaganda.

I'm not too sure how science would function, some would consider me to be some sort of mad man if I spewed the shit I did i.e "blacks aren't pre-determined with a gene that makes them run away from slavery lmao", but that's always something.

I'd also argue for said revolutionary ideas to spread internationally, which would then spread to people in France (hopefully not too many innocents won't be sent to the guillotine and Robespierre won't go mad as a result).

Set up as much workers councils and self-reliance policies as possible (don't want to be caught down with blockades).

Invent the atomic bomb.

...

Ah yes, the "Code Geass Strategy".

turncoat, invite spanish immigrants so they outbreed whites 150 years earlier

That would imply that European 'democracies' somehow do represent the people's interests and not the interests of the rich, which is a joke.

Critically support the United Kingdom in their fight against temporal imperialism.

I would push for completely nonsensical and contradictory laws and policies by appealing to the very worst tendencies of the founding fathers.

I would do my utmost to ensure that the American state wouldn't make it more than a couple decades or so before collapsing. I would also try to make it so this failed American state could easily be gobbled up by a European power.

Good ending.

You'll never get to live in this timeline

How the fuck should I know? If I have their memories I'd probably care about different things. And what I'd even be able to do would depend on which founding father I was.

If I was able, I'd do my best to spread knowledge from our times, and I'd re-write a shitload of material on science and political theory. Then for good measure I'd write down a bunch of predictions to prove I was from the future and/or bolster my case.

If I was in a position to change US history (depending on the founder) I would push for the most democratized/anarchic version of the US. Other anons mentioned Shay's Rebellion, which would be tight if they could have won. At minimum, Americans fetishize the founding fathers so the writings would be very important, maybe more important than anything else I could do.

Fucking imagine if burgers fetishized Capital or an equivalent the way they fetishize what their founders wrote. Imagine if instead of muh protestant work ethic, they had ruthless critique and revolutionary spirit.


Didn't Washington basically argue this?

That wouldn't happen. You'd just get ostracized like Thomas Paine.

Best option is to fuck the United States legal and economic system so badly that the country does in its infancy.

We'd probably be living in communism now if not for the United States.

*dies

Shoot every slave owner, install Tom Paine as dictator for life.

The only sensible solution.

I question the wisdom of writing a genius, critical analysis of something that doesn't quite exist yet.


Hamilton, no question. He's the one who shaped economy, and materialism is what matters.

stop fucking with the natives by redistributing the land they live on?

The deed would have already been done when you're sent back.