This is because the founding fathers are a major component of the US "civic religion". The founders are seen to be unequivocally good and prophetic, to the exte

This is because the founding fathers are a major component of the US "civic religion". The founders are seen to be unequivocally good and prophetic, to the extent where questioning anything they thought or did is considered unacceptable. It is strongly preferred for people to tie their ideas and initiatives back to the founding fathers in some way, instead of going against the grain and suggesting that people could be fallible or that some centuries-old laws may need to be updated once in a while. The US is a very backwards-looking country, which leads to some good things but also other effects that aren't seen in most other countries. A major legal theory in the US now is that laws should be interpreted based on what we think the people at the time meant by them, rather than what the writings actually say. Any large-scale political reform is disfavored - the US has effectively stopped editing its constitution half a century ago, and under the sea of laws that were derived from its "founding documents", you still have 18th century law. This, in combination with the founding fathers stuff, means that every political argument is given an escape hatch - why prove that your idea is actually good for anyone, when you can just try to hammer down that this is "what the founding fathers would have wanted"?