There is a bitter irony in celebrating America’s 250th birthday while asking a question that would have bewildered James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington: How does a nation born in rebellion against the cult of one man become so consumed by another?

The Founders feared kings. They feared demagogues. They feared mobs intoxicated by emotion rather than reason. They feared factions that would substitute loyalty to personalities for loyalty to the Constitution. Read the debates of the Constitutional Convention. Read The Federalist Papers. Read Washington’s Farewell Address. Their anxiety was never merely about foreign enemies. It was about what free people might willingly do to themselves.

America was designed to produce citizens—not courtiers.

The rabbis of the Talmud understood the same danger long before Philadelphia. The Mishnah teaches, “Pray for the welfare of the government, for were it not for fear of it, people would swallow one another alive” (Pirkei Avot 3:2). Government is necessary because human beings are imperfect. Yet the same rabbinic tradition refuses to sanctify rulers. Government is indispensable, but rulers remain accountable to a law higher than themselves.

The Talmud repeatedly insists that no king stands above the Torah. The prophet Nathan publicly rebuked David. King David’s greatness lay not in being flawless, but in accepting moral judgment. Jewish civilization does not celebrate infallible leaders; it celebrates leaders who remain subject to........

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