Increasingly thinking the founding fathers were exceptionally mediocre people who did some exceptionally mediocre thinking and even recognized it. Mixed in with some outright bad thinking,
Who are you including in that set and what sources are you basing it on? The apotheosis of the founders is merely that, but reading the Federalist Papers, works of Franklin, and others made it clear to me they were far from mediocre.
What I’ve read of the federalist papers struck me as being about the level of decent blogs today. Good but hardly inspired to the level of shaping 250 years
Good texts from 50 years ago are often mediocre by today’s standards (e.g. K&R’s C book). A great text 250 years ago was almost certainly exceptional for its time.