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Surprised to see this article makes a case only about the Republican Party's loss of interest in the Constitution. I personally know more Americans on the oppos

Surprised to see this article makes a case only about the Republican Party's loss of interest in the Constitution. I personally know more Americans on the opposite end of the political spectrum and have heard the Constitution called illegitimate due to absence of input from BIPOC at its creation, or that the First Amendment is harmful because it does not curtail hate speech. The Second Amendment in the age of more powerful weapons than existed in 1787, is a popular subject of debate at this and similar sites. Thus, there seem to be a broad array of Americans who no longer feel invested in the guiding document of their polity, which might augur tumultuous times as factions strive towards some new foundation for a country.

pauldenton 3y ago
It's surprising people haven't lost more faith in the Constitution given the last 3 and a half years since March of 2020 People didn't realize that things like Freedom of Assembly had a political check, where protesting lockdowns is killing grandma but protesting the police is stunning and brave.
rayiner 3y ago
[flagged]
- jeezfrk 3y ago
  [flagged]
paulddraper 3y ago
> surprising Can't be surprised if it's from The Atlantic :/
wildermuthn 3y ago
I agree that disavowal of the Constitution isn’t restricted to one party, but would go further: the Constitution isn’t really intended for “the people” at large. It’s intended for the set of people who would rise to power in its absence — call them the ruling classes. It’s an agreement between the powerful that this is how we get along, this is how we share and restrict power, this is how we maintain a government that avoids the descent into tyranny or dissolution. It may be that the Constitution is no longer a viable means of ensuring the peaceful transfer of power and of facilitating good-enough governance. It certainly has failed dramatically in the past to prevent civil strife. Is there an amendment that can fix whatever is wrong with the current situation and bring the elites back to the same page? What is wrong with the current situation? The fundamental problem is that the USA now thinks of itself as a direct democracy rather than a representative democracy and that modern technology has fueled the worst populist instincts of our population, creating an atmosphere ripe for demagoguery and factionalism. The Constitution had a solution for this — the indirect representation of the Senate, who up until the 17th amendment were chosen by the local state representatives. Indirect representation was meant to prevent “mob rule”. There is now no real difference in the makeup of the Senate and House of Representatives. Undoing the 17th amendment would only result in even worse corruption and factionalism, but the idea of indirect representation is the correct idea. After batting ideas around with GPT4 for a while, it seems one palatable amendment might be a three-fold change: 1) a 1-term term limits for Senators, 2) forbidding party primaries for Senate elections, and 3) changing Senate elections to Senate nominations, where any candidate who receives more than 20% of votes is sent to the current Senate for confirmation — the existing Senate, including the outgoing Senators, decide which of the nominees are to be confirmed. Confirmation is done Papal style — nobody goes home until the new Senators are confirmed by 2/3 majority. Combining a 1-term limit with Senate self-confirmation means that more candidates have a chance of becoming a Senator without having to resort to demagoguery or factionalism, and that over time the composition of the Senate will trend away from power hungry individuals to civic-minded servants.
- wildermuthn 3y ago
  For clarity: The Senate Renewal and Integrity Amendment: *Amendment XXVIII*: Section 1. No person shall be elected to the Senate more than once. Section 2. No political party shall hold a primary for the nomination of a Senate candidate. Section 3. For the election of Senators: (a) Any candidate receiving more than twenty percent of the popular vote in their respective state shall be considered as a nominee. (b) Upon receiving the list of nominees, the Senate shall convene in a closed session. Confirmation of a nominee requires a two-thirds majority of the Senate. Senators shall cast their votes anonymously. This process shall continue until a nominee is confirmed. Senators shall remain in session without adjournment until the confirmation is achieved. (c) Outgoing Senators shall retain their voting privileges for the purpose of confirming their successors. Section 4. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
klyrs 3y ago
Why are you surprised by this? You say "opposite end of the spectrum" but then the opinions you cite from the left which are so extreme that very few elected Democrats would be caught standing next to somebody espousing them. Contrast that to an ex-president who literally spent months trying to end-run the constitution and stay in power -- and the few Republicans who spoke out against that are deemed "Republican in name only." Is it news that some extremists on either end want to tear everything down? No. Is it news that one of two political parties has rallied around a plan to tear it all down? We haven't seen that since the, perhaps first, civil war.
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  You write that elected Democrats wouldn't be caught standing next to people on the extreme left. At the same time Democrats rely on that extreme, too, for votes in tight elections and can't risk alienating it. That could mean that even mainstream Democrats might no longer be so willing to perpetuate the American national mythology -- the Constitution as a sacred document and the Founders as great men -- that both parties could broadly agree on for a long time. And as other poster here mentions, when the left, too, loses interest in those founding values, it is less capable of standing up to alarming behavior from the right.
  - klyrs 3y ago
    Obama famously snubbed Cornell West, but he still got re-elected and then his milquetoast veep got elected. Dr. West is now running for president, which sounds like it should test your theory that Democrats cannot offend the extreme left. Do you actually think he'll draw enough votes for (R) to win? I don't.
    - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
      I daresay Cornell West is more extreme left than a broader “extreme left” that simply feels that the Constitution is a deeply, perhaps irredeemably flawed document. Moreover, the Obama reelection was over a decade ago, and with the events of this last decade and changing American demographics, the Democrat youth vote at this moment is probably even more cynical about the American national mythology. A mainstream Democrat certainly wouldn’t outright disparage the Constitution, but praising the Constitution as a sacred and well-designed document, as used to be done by both parties and perpetuated in American civics classes, could only turn those voters off.
archagon 3y ago
> I personally know more Americans on the opposite end of the political spectrum and have heard the Constitution called illegitimate due to absence of input from BIPOC at its creation, or that the First Amendment is harmful because it does not curtail hate speech. The Second Amendment in the age of more powerful weapons than existed in 1787, is a popular subject of debate at this and similar sites. And yet none of these people have any real power, nor any party really backing their convictions, nor are they actively working to disenfranchise people and dismantle democracy. Absolutely a false equivalence. The Republican party is unquestionably the party of Trump. And Trump demands to be king of America, no matter the cost.
onetimeusename 3y ago
I agree with this. There are a lot of people who think American history is irrelevant to them, and I think a wedge is driven against people by asserting that American history is irrelevant to non-white people. Hate speech is a good example. It's not a new debate and it's pretty obvious to me that governments use whatever leverage they have against their citizens which is why free speech is important. In places where there are restrictions on speech, we see it abused against citizens. For example, in Islamic countries with blasphemy laws, they are weaponized against the opposition. Germany aggressively prosecutes people using anti-Natsoc laws and anti hate speech laws on what seems like a very politically biased basis https://web.archive.org/web/20230316140458/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/23/technology/germany-internet-speech-arrest.html https://web.archive.org/web/20230316140458/https://www.nytim.... If government has a method to arrest and silence people it doesn't like, it will find a way to use that method. I think the US is already hopeless so technology is the solution.

pauldenton 3y ago

It's surprising people haven't lost more faith in the Constitution given the last 3 and a half years since March of 2020 People didn't realize that things like Freedom of Assembly had a political check, where protesting lockdowns is killing grandma but protesting the police is stunning and brave.

rayiner 3y ago

[flagged]

jeezfrk 3y ago
[flagged]

paulddraper 3y ago

> surprising Can't be surprised if it's from The Atlantic :/

wildermuthn 3y ago

I agree that disavowal of the Constitution isn’t restricted to one party, but would go further: the Constitution isn’t really intended for “the people” at large. It’s intended for the set of people who would rise to power in its absence — call them the ruling classes. It’s an agreement between the powerful that this is how we get along, this is how we share and restrict power, this is how we maintain a government that avoids the descent into tyranny or dissolution. It may be that the Constitution is no longer a viable means of ensuring the peaceful transfer of power and of facilitating good-enough governance. It certainly has failed dramatically in the past to prevent civil strife. Is there an amendment that can fix whatever is wrong with the current situation and bring the elites back to the same page? What is wrong with the current situation? The fundamental problem is that the USA now thinks of itself as a direct democracy rather than a representative democracy and that modern technology has fueled the worst populist instincts of our population, creating an atmosphere ripe for demagoguery and factionalism. The Constitution had a solution for this — the indirect representation of the Senate, who up until the 17th amendment were chosen by the local state representatives. Indirect representation was meant to prevent “mob rule”. There is now no real difference in the makeup of the Senate and House of Representatives. Undoing the 17th amendment would only result in even worse corruption and factionalism, but the idea of indirect representation is the correct idea. After batting ideas around with GPT4 for a while, it seems one palatable amendment might be a three-fold change: 1) a 1-term term limits for Senators, 2) forbidding party primaries for Senate elections, and 3) changing Senate elections to Senate nominations, where any candidate who receives more than 20% of votes is sent to the current Senate for confirmation — the existing Senate, including the outgoing Senators, decide which of the nominees are to be confirmed. Confirmation is done Papal style — nobody goes home until the new Senators are confirmed by 2/3 majority. Combining a 1-term limit with Senate self-confirmation means that more candidates have a chance of becoming a Senator without having to resort to demagoguery or factionalism, and that over time the composition of the Senate will trend away from power hungry individuals to civic-minded servants.

wildermuthn 3y ago
For clarity: The Senate Renewal and Integrity Amendment: *Amendment XXVIII*: Section 1. No person shall be elected to the Senate more than once. Section 2. No political party shall hold a primary for the nomination of a Senate candidate. Section 3. For the election of Senators: (a) Any candidate receiving more than twenty percent of the popular vote in their respective state shall be considered as a nominee. (b) Upon receiving the list of nominees, the Senate shall convene in a closed session. Confirmation of a nominee requires a two-thirds majority of the Senate. Senators shall cast their votes anonymously. This process shall continue until a nominee is confirmed. Senators shall remain in session without adjournment until the confirmation is achieved. (c) Outgoing Senators shall retain their voting privileges for the purpose of confirming their successors. Section 4. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

klyrs 3y ago

Why are you surprised by this? You say "opposite end of the spectrum" but then the opinions you cite from the left which are so extreme that very few elected Democrats would be caught standing next to somebody espousing them. Contrast that to an ex-president who literally spent months trying to end-run the constitution and stay in power -- and the few Republicans who spoke out against that are deemed "Republican in name only." Is it news that some extremists on either end want to tear everything down? No. Is it news that one of two political parties has rallied around a plan to tear it all down? We haven't seen that since the, perhaps first, civil war.

OfSanguineFire 3y ago
You write that elected Democrats wouldn't be caught standing next to people on the extreme left. At the same time Democrats rely on that extreme, too, for votes in tight elections and can't risk alienating it. That could mean that even mainstream Democrats might no longer be so willing to perpetuate the American national mythology -- the Constitution as a sacred document and the Founders as great men -- that both parties could broadly agree on for a long time. And as other poster here mentions, when the left, too, loses interest in those founding values, it is less capable of standing up to alarming behavior from the right.
- klyrs 3y ago
  Obama famously snubbed Cornell West, but he still got re-elected and then his milquetoast veep got elected. Dr. West is now running for president, which sounds like it should test your theory that Democrats cannot offend the extreme left. Do you actually think he'll draw enough votes for (R) to win? I don't.
  - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
    I daresay Cornell West is more extreme left than a broader “extreme left” that simply feels that the Constitution is a deeply, perhaps irredeemably flawed document. Moreover, the Obama reelection was over a decade ago, and with the events of this last decade and changing American demographics, the Democrat youth vote at this moment is probably even more cynical about the American national mythology. A mainstream Democrat certainly wouldn’t outright disparage the Constitution, but praising the Constitution as a sacred and well-designed document, as used to be done by both parties and perpetuated in American civics classes, could only turn those voters off.

archagon 3y ago

> I personally know more Americans on the opposite end of the political spectrum and have heard the Constitution called illegitimate due to absence of input from BIPOC at its creation, or that the First Amendment is harmful because it does not curtail hate speech. The Second Amendment in the age of more powerful weapons than existed in 1787, is a popular subject of debate at this and similar sites. And yet none of these people have any real power, nor any party really backing their convictions, nor are they actively working to disenfranchise people and dismantle democracy. Absolutely a false equivalence. The Republican party is unquestionably the party of Trump. And Trump demands to be king of America, no matter the cost.

onetimeusename 3y ago

I agree with this. There are a lot of people who think American history is irrelevant to them, and I think a wedge is driven against people by asserting that American history is irrelevant to non-white people. Hate speech is a good example. It's not a new debate and it's pretty obvious to me that governments use whatever leverage they have against their citizens which is why free speech is important. In places where there are restrictions on speech, we see it abused against citizens. For example, in Islamic countries with blasphemy laws, they are weaponized against the opposition. Germany aggressively prosecutes people using anti-Natsoc laws and anti hate speech laws on what seems like a very politically biased basis https://web.archive.org/web/20230316140458/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/23/technology/germany-internet-speech-arrest.html https://web.archive.org/web/20230316140458/https://www.nytim.... If government has a method to arrest and silence people it doesn't like, it will find a way to use that method. I think the US is already hopeless so technology is the solution.