The Founders took out insurance...
in the form of decentralization and balanced powers, against incompetent or malevolent people in power. It's interesting how the balance discourages both extremes, the good of a "true renaissance" with a "unified government" as well as the bad that a unified government can do. Cautious guys, as if they built the ship of state so that the wheel naturally returns to center when nobody's twisting it. Maybe we don't get the best of all possible worlds, but we're unlikely to get the worst either. Guess we do what we've always done (so well) and muddle through.