Who in the 18th century would have thought a huge chunk of the country would want a known despot?

Well there is the French 16 th century thinker Etienne de la Boétie who wrote a discourse on voluntary servitude in which he argued that men do tend to simp for tyrants over being free a lot of the time:

The essay argues that any tyrant remains in power while his subjects grant him that, therefore delegitimizing every form of power. The original freedom of men would be indeed abandoned by society which, once corrupted by the habit, would have preferred the servitude of the courtier to the freedom of the free man, who refuses to be submissive and to obey.

It’s not that silly if law enforcement officials and judges are elected, like how they are in the American system. Ideally the court/justice system is entirely loose from politics.

Also don’t forget that the founding fathers did all partake in sedition, many of them not really having a clear slate whatsoever.

But yeah this particular instance hasn’t crossed their minds at all.