The Runback: The Constitution Is Not the Problem
The Left hates the Constitution because they hate federalism. But the Constitution is not the problem. Nor is Donald Trump. It's our society.
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News and Politics
Announcing The Duckpin 100 for 2024: For the third year, we present the 100 most important people in Maryland State Politics and Government.
Unfit to Serve: The Appointment of a January 6th Putschist to the State Board of Elections should be the last straw should be the last straw for Nicole Harris.
The Monday Thought
Every so often, the left starts to complain about the Constitution. Kinda like this recent piece in The Atlantic by Larry Schwartztol and Justin Florence:
The American experiment with constitutional democracy is in grave peril. If Donald Trump becomes president again, fighting to preserve U.S. constitutional democracy through his second term will require the courage, commitment, and creativity of a broad prodemocracy coalition.
But the problem is not merely Trump. The U.S. Constitution itself contributes to the country’s crisis. As David Frum observed in a recent issue of The Atlantic, “If Trump is elected, it very likely won’t be with a majority of the popular vote” but rather because our system for selecting the president “has privileged a strategically located minority, led by a lawbreaking president, over the democratic majority.” America must fight the immediate threat, but it must also go beyond that and stop this problem at its core: addressing once and for all the aspects of the Constitution that enable an authoritarian leader to remain within striking distance of the presidency.
I, of course, don’t disagree with the premise that Trump threatens the American Order and American governance. Trump has openly stated his disdain for our Constitutional system and his wish to rule by decree while surrounded by sycophantic narcissists who will not give a rip about being restrained by Congress, by the Courts, or by the Rule of Law.
But that’s not the Constitution’s fault.
The arguments by Schwartztol and Florence center around two basic premises, both of which have been left-wing complaints for years:
The original Constitution was written when democracy meant something radically different than it does today. Over time, Americans have amended the Constitution to make it more democratic, but shortcomings remain. The most significant, in our view, are the hardwired constitutional structures that are inimical to any modern understanding of democracy: the Electoral College, which could put Trump in office without majority support for a second time, and the equal allocation of two seats in the Senate to each state (an arrangement that gives a Wyoming voter 70 times more senatorial clout than a Californian). Reforming those structures would get the country much closer to the one-person, one-vote democratic ideal.
Those two “hardwired constitutional structures that are inimical to any modern understanding of democracy” are what make us so unique and are a symbol of American exceptionalism.
The thing that the left continues to try and ignore or flat out just doesn't understand is the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
The premise of the Republic is federalism. It is not Democracy.
Take a look, for example, at this map. The green states represent “federal states” and the blue represents “unitary states”.
Ever notice that the unitary states like the U.K., France1, and Italy always have the most instability with their parliamentary systems?
There’s a simple reason for that. In these countries, states and localities have practically no power that is not bequeathed to them by the states. Whereas in federal systems like ours, the fifty states retain the power to do things on their own.
That’s the real reason the left hates the Electoral College so much and hates that each state has an equal number of Senators. They hate the fact that not all decisions are made in Washington. They hate the concept of federalism itself.2
They close their piece with this warning:
In the midst of an ongoing democratic crisis—where a leading presidential candidate speaks openly of acting as a “dictator” and exacting retribution against his political opponents—investing in long-term reform can seem like a fantasy. Failing to do so, however, carries its own risks. Without attending to the architecture of American democracy, the inherent weaknesses at its foundation may, in time, cause it to come tumbling down.
But Trump isn’t the problem here. Neither is the Constitution. It’s us, as a society. That America has become so polarized has led us to this. That Republicans became so fed up with losing that they would embrace anybody they thought they could win. That Republicans convinced themselves that their side was so feckless that they would embrace a left-wing, gun-grabbing, pro-abortion Hillary Clinton donor statist like Trump “bEcAUsE hE fIGhtS”.
Worries about Constitutional governance should not be focused on fixing a document that works. They should be focused on fixing a society that is broken.
Fun fact: France last had a successful coup in 1958.
So does Trump. But he’s a leftist too so…..