"The Constitution is just a piece of paper." - GW Bush
Whether he actually said that, or merely behaved accordingly is really irrelevant.
The Constitution has been shredded for the last quarter of a century. But political parties and most people just don't care about that. The US is in a death-spiral. Look around you. Is this the way things were back in 2000?
> The US is in a death-spiral. Look around you. Is this the way things were back in 2000?
I think society was more cohesive in 2000. Multiculturalism, globalism, and technological changes (example: the filter bubble) have eroded cohesion not only in the US, but also in other populous, ethnically diverse societies.
Yet, I think this “death spiral” take is a touch dramatic. Our short history is lined with one constitutional crisis after another.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Do you have evidence to support your feelings about what mainstream Democrats feel? Or can you name right-of-West-but-still-extreme-left politician who exemplifies your position? Because I'm pretty far out there but I love the constitution -- and while I think it's got its flaws, I'm no different from Ben Franklin in that regard and I see it as a living document: it can and must be amended as those flaws become apparent.
Post George Floyd, I know mainstream moderate Democrats now that call the constitution a “racist document.” For longer than that, mainstream democrats have dismissed federalism as merely a pretext for segregation. People will regularly argue against adhering to the original meaning or intent of the document “because the founders were slave holders.”
Ideologically, the fact that the constitution represents a compromise with slave holders has become increasingly intolerable for democrats. Anti-racism as a principle has become more important than rule of law or cultivating a shared respect for the fundamental law.
Democrats of these days call everything "tainted". That movement has only interest in defining flaws as inherent.
None want to burn it all down. This is for genuine fear of those who want fascism to encourage mob violence, discrimination and deny law and order to minorities.
Puritans are not the anarchists in this story. Little Nazis are trying to normalize revolution and idol worship as somehow universal.
Lying to kill the constitution is their main tactic.
I am not from the US, but if I was and I had to vote purely on who is less likely to tear democracy down, I would vote the Democrats and it is not even a close contest.
Your left leaning democrats are like our center-left government parties in terms of ideology. The Dems as a whole are slightly center right. Your Republicans are like our far right fringe parties.
Especially after how they handled their presidents insurection, the Republicans in my eyes should be unvotable for anybody who cares about democracy. And they should remain unvotable until they do some soul-searching. But this also includes things the GOP does outside of Trumps sphere of influence. E.g. look at the list of the worst gerrymandered states or at how the right tries to stop people from voting. If not enough people vote your party the democratic way would be to adjust which positions you offer to them, but the GOP seems like it would rather adjust their electorate.
Even if I liked the positions the GOP holds I would hate the idea to let them rule me, because this smells of "ignore what the voter wants". To theie credit, they managed to divide the electorate so much with culture-war bs that a big part of them actively want to become peasants under absolutist rule if it just meant the other side will lose.
But in the Constitution, state legislatures select the electors that pick the President. The GOP scheme has a better textual basis, and is better rooted in the Constitutional design, than any things that Democrats consider well established constitutional law.
There is no “right to vote for every government official.” Judges aren’t elected. Until 1913, Senators weren’t either. And the President still isn’t elected by the public. The constitution empowers state legislatures to select presidential electors.
Currently, those electors are selected based on a popular vote as a matter of state law. But that could be changed by the state legislatures at any time, because ultimately the power rests with them to select the federal president.
As you say, the power to pick electors is a matter delegated to state legislatures. Trump's efforts, as president, to replace those legally-selected electors with electors of his own choosing is, ipso facto, unconstitutional.
If he had perhaps sought to convince those state legislatures to change their electoral process to favor him, that could have been constitutional. But the actions he undertook in his role as the head of the federal executive branch is clearly and egregiously in violation of the constitutional delegation of authority to state legislatures. Just because state law could be changed doesn't mean that the law was changed.
And that is why he stands indicted for election interference in Georgia, it's why I hope he'll be indicted in other states, and why I hope he'll be in state penitentiary before January 2025. Because he's a criminal who has zero respect for the constitution. He even said it:
> Do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.
He literally called for the termination of the constitution, and you're here saying that we really need to be focused on how an inscrutable segment of "far left voters" might possibly dislike the constitution even though you have no evidence to show on that?
The implication that these are comparably impactful constitutional questions is risible. Further: zero is the number of Republicans that would accept the constitutionality of the argument you're making were the roles reversed.
This whole thread of argument you're making is, and this is saying something, distinctively hard to assume good faith about.
> The implication that these are comparably impactful constitutional questions is risible.
A century of a growing administrative state and sweeping anti-democratic social changes that have no basis in the constitution is pretty impactful.
> Further: zero is the number of Republicans that would accept the constitutionality of the argument you're making were the roles reversed.
Maybe, but the roles are rarely reversed because they’re not nearly as creative in their legal positions. Even here—imagine what more you could justify by looking at the “penumbras” and “emanations” of that clause of Article II! (Or the second amendment, or the tenth amendment, etc.) Just imagine a 6-3 conservative Supreme Court that all approached the constitutional text the way Breyer did.
> This whole thread of argument you're making is, and this is saying something, distinctively hard to assume good faith about.
I’ve thought direct election of the President (and Senators) was stupid ever since 1L constitutional law. The GOP is just finally coming around.
I'm not interested in the grievances. Both poles of American politics have grievances. Your argument that those grievances justify overriding the vote is risible, and the way you know that's true is that if Biden tried it, every Republican in America would justifiably go apeshit. Please stop trolling. Just: please, stop. Whatever problem you're trying to solve with this stuff, you can't solve it on HN.
You asked about the “impact” of those interpretative questions. I’m pointing out that ginning up a fourth branch of government and overturning popular legislation left and right was pretty impactful.
And I did not suggest anything was “justified,” because frankly that’s irrelevant. What matters is what the constitution says and means. It invests the ultimate power to “appoint” electors in state legislatures. States may choose to put that to a vote as a matter of state law, but I struggle to see anything in the constitution that would prevent them from overriding that law, even after an election. If a school principal puts something to the students for a vote—something that the law entrusts to her discretion—can she ignore that vote and do what she wants? Probably!
Finally, I’m not “trolling,” I’m being quite serious. In the US, the state legislatures select the President, just like the EU President is selected by the European Commission. Direct election of the chief executive is a stupid idea, and most civilized countries don’t do it that way. State legislatures taking the power to appoint electors back after holding an election is politically messy, and may violate state law depending on the particulars. But there’s nothing unconstitutional about it. Neither as a matter of the text, or the underlying principles. (As to Senators we should repeal the 17th amendment, but that at least has a textual footing.)
I see now, thanks for clarifying. You're clinging to the independent legislature theory even after Trump's picks agreed, it's batshit stupid. Despite the profoundly idiotic nature of the theory, it still does not support the efforts of Trump to overturn the election through fraud and violence, which the Republican party has given its full-throated support to. But yeah, folks are still pretending that it's the Democrats who hate the constitution and rule of law. Good show.
> You're clinging to the independent legislature theory even after Trump's picks agreed, it's batshit stupid.
I don't interpret rayiner's comments as supporting the independent state legislature (ISL) theory. ISL claims that the constitutional power of state legislatures to regulate federal elections cannot be limited by state constitutional provisions or rulings of state courts. I don't see rayiner as making that claim here – he claims that when state law provides for popular election of presidential electors, the state legislature can repeal or suspend that law, even in-between the popular election and the formal nomination of the presidential electors. ISL would go further, and say that if the state legislature chose to do that, the state courts could not strike it down as a violation of the state constitution; I haven't seen rayiner make that claim anywhere in this conversation; but, if he doesn't make that further claim, what he is espousing is not the same thing as ISL.
> Even here—imagine what more you could justify by looking at the “penumbras” and “emanations” of that clause of Article II!
You could justify a theory of an immense array of independent Presidential powers hidden within the penumbras and emanations of the phrase “Commander-in-Chief”, despite that phrase being simply a limitation on who has the apex command position over the military under the regulation Congress is clearly and explicitly given the power to provide for it. Just to pick one example of where the Right has demonstrated the exact creativity you deny that they exercise.
> Even here—imagine what more you could justify by looking at the “penumbras” and “emanations” of that clause of Article II!
To look at a different clause of Article II, you could justify a theory of an immense array of independent Presidential powers hidden within the penumbras and emanations of the phrase “Commander-in-Chief”, despite that phrase being simply a limitation on who has the apex command position over the military under the regulation Congress is clearly and explicitly given the power to provide for it. Just to pick one example of where the Right has demonstrated the exact creativity you deny that they exercise.
That is the most spit-in-your-face “well akshually” I’ve ever heard. Fuck your votes, because technically we’re allowed to ignore them and substitute our own…?!
It’s a shame that “have you no decency, sir?” would fall on deaf ears in Congress in this day and age.
> 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.
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.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.
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.
The Constitution is almost 250 years old. It’s amazing for its time, but it’s now the oldest written constitution still in use and long since improved on by its many imitators and copies. We probably should replace it.
I imagine your politics swing left and progressive, right?
Which is why this article is kind of absurd, in my opinion, as it tags the right / Republicans as those who are abandoning the Constitution.
Every poll or social study I've seen shows that progressives - especially the younger generations - have views similar to yours i.e. not much reverence for the Constitution, the founders, etc. They are most likely to believe that freedom of speech is less important than moderating "hate speech." They believe the 2nd amendment right to bear arms is ridiculously out of date in a modern society, etc.
I imagine their politics fall fully 100% in line with those of Benjamin Franklin:
I confess that there are several parts of this constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them ...
In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other.
etc.
Franklin literally believed the Constitution as it stood had a political half life and would be eventually gamed and run around on technicalities.
Forget your polls & social studies .. the actual OG Founder had not much reverance for the Constitution and would likely be appalled by your apparent raising up of it onto a sacred pedestal.
It’s not the “left” or “progressives” who have top leadership calling for the disregard of the constitution.
“Do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution" - Trump
The concepts espoused by the constitution are as old as man. Humans are flawed. Power corrupts. Does the constitution need replacing? Perhaps our implementation has become wildly corrupted over the course of 250 years.
It might be worth separating out the parts like the Bill of Rights from the more organizational pieces like the Presidential system and the Electoral College. Some of those pieces are “old as man” and others are the best ideas anyone had in the 18th century.
In particular, the Presidential system has failed badly in almost every non-US country it’s been tried in, because it’s inherently unstable when there is a forceful President and polarized political parties. It may be failing us today in the US. https://delong.typepad.com/linz_perils_presidencialism.pdf
The Constitution was abandoned about 90 years ago, when FDR threatened to pack the Supreme Court in order to enable his vast expansion of government. For the better part of a century, you’ve essentially had the executive branch exercising both the lawmaking power and the judicial power. An executive branch agency can make a law and then prosecute you for violating it in front of an employee of the agency. Federalism has been completely upended, with the federal government getting involved in everything from local policing to local education.
> The Constitution was abandoned about 90 years ago, when FDR threatened to pack the Supreme Court
Not really. Threatening to pack the Court may have violated custom, but did not violate the Constitution itself, since Congress has the power to set the number of justices.
This actually highlights the more fundamental problem: the constitution is structurally imperfect and, really, is totally inert without accompanying norms and customs to make it mean something.
Unfortunately, the debate about what those norms and customs should be and how they should be developed and enforced is spoiled by philosophical and tribal gulfs that seemingly cannot be bridged.
> Threatening to pack the Court may have violated custom, but did not violate the Constitution itself, since Congress has the power to set the number of justices.
The threat of court packing didn’t destroy the constitution. It was the Supreme Court decisions made under the threat of court packing.
The landmark being Wickard v. Filburn which established that grain you grew on your own property and sold to no one, using it to feed his family and animals actually fell within the Commerce Clause because if he didn't grow that wheat he would have bought it in a store, and the wheat in that store would have likely crossed state lines, so wheat he grows on his own property that never leaves his property nor is sold is actually interstate commerce
Wickard is especially shameless, but let’s not pretend the Supreme Court was some temple of reason and truth that FDR defiled. Morehead v. New York enforced a libertarian agenda using the same squishy “substantive due process” that underlay both Dred Scott and Roe.
The MAGAS have taken over the GOP. Rank and file GOP now openly espouse Qanon precepts. It’s standard fare to speak of gutting support for Ukraine and of support for Putin. We witnessed a physical coup attempt Jan 6th, rallied by Mr Trump and yet his GQP colleagues are literally running interference for Trump, attempting to stymie any attempts at accountability.
Barring some extremists who call FDR “radical”, I cannot see the case for “both sides ism”
It’s apparent to me that ONE party has chosen attempting to gain ABSOLUTE POWER in lieu of helping the nation or staying true to the constitution.
The stacked Supreme Court is a point in case: McConnell blocked Obamas single appointee that he had a right to appoint and this was a violation of the constitution.(no mention of election calendar in appointments)
Trump then railroaded through Congress an unprecedented 3 justices!
Unheard of. Absolute power grab. No surprise that they overturned Roe v Wade.
I see América on the precipice and the GQP trying to push it over the edge.
If Trump gets in in 2024, we won’t see presidential elections again. He admires banana republic dictators and hates due process
I mostly agree. Especially with the alarm you are expressing.
I don’t like to be one sided, and certainly have heard people on the left falling for the idea that due process isn’t necessary to make important enough changes (in there opinion), I.e. supporting extreme judicial activism, institutional capture by ideologues, etc.
But elements of the Republican Party are preparing to wash away formal and legal limits and bipartisan/non-partisan fire walls to unfettered power for their faction, in an organized way, if they get Trump elected. [0]
A lot has been learned about the vulnerabilities of our voting and executive branch systems.
Those efforts are unlikely to evaporate post-Trump.
It is a rather scary time.
Scary enough for a recent Republican presidential candidate to express great worry about his own party.
That’s a colossal red flag.
And I see the far left’s less extreme loss of respect for the constitution as counter productively providing right extremists with soft targets for their own otherwise manufactured “alarm”.
Not speaking to the broader questions, and I certainly have problems with Trump and the current court, but calling 3 appointments unprecedented is just wildly off base. The record is held by Washington on a technicality, but 4 or more successful SCOTUS appointments isn't uncommon in our history - the most recent was Reagan.
It doesn't undermine the argument but I wasn't speaking to the argument. It's just not the case that more than 2 appointments per term is all that unusual. Calling it unprecedented deserves pushback.
Sure, unprecedented is too strong. In the last 12 presidencies, all of them have appointed 2 or fewer justices except for Nixon and Reagan at 4, and Trump at 3. It’s precedented for Republican presidents to appoint an extraordinary amount of justices…
Especially because of the dubious nature of the first one. The vacancy lasted over a year, because the opposition party refused to vote. This is an enormous shift in power, for purely partisan reasons.
It was not illegal, but it's a complete breakdown of any sense of civil order. It's "fair" in the sense that two can play at that game, but that would lead to a complete logjam of the system.
Had it not been for that, he'd have nominated two members of the Court in a single term. That would be more than most, but not nearly the push of a permanent partisan majority with explicit intent of marginalizing the opposition.
This is simply false. For instance, Hoover successfully appointed 3 justices and only served a single term. Taft appointed 6! Harding appointed 4 despite only living 2 years of his term.
"Unprecedented in recent times" is weaselly but accurate. "Unprecedented" gives those who don't know better an inaccurate picture of the past and makes those who do know better wonder what else you're confidently wrong about.
None of that is to say I don't object to the shenanigans - I do.
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[ 0.39 ms ] story [ 871 ms ] threadWhether he actually said that, or merely behaved accordingly is really irrelevant.
The Constitution has been shredded for the last quarter of a century. But political parties and most people just don't care about that. The US is in a death-spiral. Look around you. Is this the way things were back in 2000?
https://www.axios.com/2017/12/15/how-american-politics-went-...
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/07/how-ame...
I think society was more cohesive in 2000. Multiculturalism, globalism, and technological changes (example: the filter bubble) have eroded cohesion not only in the US, but also in other populous, ethnically diverse societies.
Yet, I think this “death spiral” take is a touch dramatic. Our short history is lined with one constitutional crisis after another.
https://web.archive.org/web/20230915001212/https://www.theat...
Flushing and switching to Google | Quad9 | AdBlock DNS might fix that for you.
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.
Can't be surprised if it's from The Atlantic :/
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.
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.
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.
Ideologically, the fact that the constitution represents a compromise with slave holders has become increasingly intolerable for democrats. Anti-racism as a principle has become more important than rule of law or cultivating a shared respect for the fundamental law.
None want to burn it all down. This is for genuine fear of those who want fascism to encourage mob violence, discrimination and deny law and order to minorities.
Puritans are not the anarchists in this story. Little Nazis are trying to normalize revolution and idol worship as somehow universal.
Lying to kill the constitution is their main tactic.
Your left leaning democrats are like our center-left government parties in terms of ideology. The Dems as a whole are slightly center right. Your Republicans are like our far right fringe parties.
Especially after how they handled their presidents insurection, the Republicans in my eyes should be unvotable for anybody who cares about democracy. And they should remain unvotable until they do some soul-searching. But this also includes things the GOP does outside of Trumps sphere of influence. E.g. look at the list of the worst gerrymandered states or at how the right tries to stop people from voting. If not enough people vote your party the democratic way would be to adjust which positions you offer to them, but the GOP seems like it would rather adjust their electorate.
Even if I liked the positions the GOP holds I would hate the idea to let them rule me, because this smells of "ignore what the voter wants". To theie credit, they managed to divide the electorate so much with culture-war bs that a big part of them actively want to become peasants under absolutist rule if it just meant the other side will lose.
Welcome to your role as either a Nazi or a Mao-style communist. Lying is not a creative writing class.
Currently, those electors are selected based on a popular vote as a matter of state law. But that could be changed by the state legislatures at any time, because ultimately the power rests with them to select the federal president.
If he had perhaps sought to convince those state legislatures to change their electoral process to favor him, that could have been constitutional. But the actions he undertook in his role as the head of the federal executive branch is clearly and egregiously in violation of the constitutional delegation of authority to state legislatures. Just because state law could be changed doesn't mean that the law was changed.
And that is why he stands indicted for election interference in Georgia, it's why I hope he'll be indicted in other states, and why I hope he'll be in state penitentiary before January 2025. Because he's a criminal who has zero respect for the constitution. He even said it:
> Do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.
He literally called for the termination of the constitution, and you're here saying that we really need to be focused on how an inscrutable segment of "far left voters" might possibly dislike the constitution even though you have no evidence to show on that?
This whole thread of argument you're making is, and this is saying something, distinctively hard to assume good faith about.
A century of a growing administrative state and sweeping anti-democratic social changes that have no basis in the constitution is pretty impactful.
> Further: zero is the number of Republicans that would accept the constitutionality of the argument you're making were the roles reversed.
Maybe, but the roles are rarely reversed because they’re not nearly as creative in their legal positions. Even here—imagine what more you could justify by looking at the “penumbras” and “emanations” of that clause of Article II! (Or the second amendment, or the tenth amendment, etc.) Just imagine a 6-3 conservative Supreme Court that all approached the constitutional text the way Breyer did.
> This whole thread of argument you're making is, and this is saying something, distinctively hard to assume good faith about.
I’ve thought direct election of the President (and Senators) was stupid ever since 1L constitutional law. The GOP is just finally coming around.
And I did not suggest anything was “justified,” because frankly that’s irrelevant. What matters is what the constitution says and means. It invests the ultimate power to “appoint” electors in state legislatures. States may choose to put that to a vote as a matter of state law, but I struggle to see anything in the constitution that would prevent them from overriding that law, even after an election. If a school principal puts something to the students for a vote—something that the law entrusts to her discretion—can she ignore that vote and do what she wants? Probably!
Finally, I’m not “trolling,” I’m being quite serious. In the US, the state legislatures select the President, just like the EU President is selected by the European Commission. Direct election of the chief executive is a stupid idea, and most civilized countries don’t do it that way. State legislatures taking the power to appoint electors back after holding an election is politically messy, and may violate state law depending on the particulars. But there’s nothing unconstitutional about it. Neither as a matter of the text, or the underlying principles. (As to Senators we should repeal the 17th amendment, but that at least has a textual footing.)
I don't interpret rayiner's comments as supporting the independent state legislature (ISL) theory. ISL claims that the constitutional power of state legislatures to regulate federal elections cannot be limited by state constitutional provisions or rulings of state courts. I don't see rayiner as making that claim here – he claims that when state law provides for popular election of presidential electors, the state legislature can repeal or suspend that law, even in-between the popular election and the formal nomination of the presidential electors. ISL would go further, and say that if the state legislature chose to do that, the state courts could not strike it down as a violation of the state constitution; I haven't seen rayiner make that claim anywhere in this conversation; but, if he doesn't make that further claim, what he is espousing is not the same thing as ISL.
You could justify a theory of an immense array of independent Presidential powers hidden within the penumbras and emanations of the phrase “Commander-in-Chief”, despite that phrase being simply a limitation on who has the apex command position over the military under the regulation Congress is clearly and explicitly given the power to provide for it. Just to pick one example of where the Right has demonstrated the exact creativity you deny that they exercise.
To look at a different clause of Article II, you could justify a theory of an immense array of independent Presidential powers hidden within the penumbras and emanations of the phrase “Commander-in-Chief”, despite that phrase being simply a limitation on who has the apex command position over the military under the regulation Congress is clearly and explicitly given the power to provide for it. Just to pick one example of where the Right has demonstrated the exact creativity you deny that they exercise.
It’s a shame that “have you no decency, sir?” would fall on deaf ears in Congress in this day and age.
Looks like you missed the part where the US Congress has no control over how the 50 states select electors.
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.
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.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.
Which is why this article is kind of absurd, in my opinion, as it tags the right / Republicans as those who are abandoning the Constitution.
Every poll or social study I've seen shows that progressives - especially the younger generations - have views similar to yours i.e. not much reverence for the Constitution, the founders, etc. They are most likely to believe that freedom of speech is less important than moderating "hate speech." They believe the 2nd amendment right to bear arms is ridiculously out of date in a modern society, etc.
https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a7s3.html
Forget your polls & social studies .. the actual OG Founder had not much reverance for the Constitution and would likely be appalled by your apparent raising up of it onto a sacred pedestal.
That isn’t what I read.
His prediction was that the constitution will fall because of corruption. People fighting back against corruption wouldn’t have “appalled” him.
“Do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution" - Trump
In particular, the Presidential system has failed badly in almost every non-US country it’s been tried in, because it’s inherently unstable when there is a forceful President and polarized political parties. It may be failing us today in the US. https://delong.typepad.com/linz_perils_presidencialism.pdf
Not really. Threatening to pack the Court may have violated custom, but did not violate the Constitution itself, since Congress has the power to set the number of justices.
This actually highlights the more fundamental problem: the constitution is structurally imperfect and, really, is totally inert without accompanying norms and customs to make it mean something.
Unfortunately, the debate about what those norms and customs should be and how they should be developed and enforced is spoiled by philosophical and tribal gulfs that seemingly cannot be bridged.
The threat of court packing didn’t destroy the constitution. It was the Supreme Court decisions made under the threat of court packing.
Barring some extremists who call FDR “radical”, I cannot see the case for “both sides ism” It’s apparent to me that ONE party has chosen attempting to gain ABSOLUTE POWER in lieu of helping the nation or staying true to the constitution.
The stacked Supreme Court is a point in case: McConnell blocked Obamas single appointee that he had a right to appoint and this was a violation of the constitution.(no mention of election calendar in appointments)
Trump then railroaded through Congress an unprecedented 3 justices! Unheard of. Absolute power grab. No surprise that they overturned Roe v Wade.
I see América on the precipice and the GQP trying to push it over the edge.
If Trump gets in in 2024, we won’t see presidential elections again. He admires banana republic dictators and hates due process
I don’t like to be one sided, and certainly have heard people on the left falling for the idea that due process isn’t necessary to make important enough changes (in there opinion), I.e. supporting extreme judicial activism, institutional capture by ideologues, etc.
But elements of the Republican Party are preparing to wash away formal and legal limits and bipartisan/non-partisan fire walls to unfettered power for their faction, in an organized way, if they get Trump elected. [0]
A lot has been learned about the vulnerabilities of our voting and executive branch systems.
Those efforts are unlikely to evaporate post-Trump.
It is a rather scary time.
Scary enough for a recent Republican presidential candidate to express great worry about his own party.
That’s a colossal red flag.
And I see the far left’s less extreme loss of respect for the constitution as counter productively providing right extremists with soft targets for their own otherwise manufactured “alarm”.
[0] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/politics/conservatives-aim-...
Especially because of the dubious nature of the first one. The vacancy lasted over a year, because the opposition party refused to vote. This is an enormous shift in power, for purely partisan reasons.
It was not illegal, but it's a complete breakdown of any sense of civil order. It's "fair" in the sense that two can play at that game, but that would lead to a complete logjam of the system.
Had it not been for that, he'd have nominated two members of the Court in a single term. That would be more than most, but not nearly the push of a permanent partisan majority with explicit intent of marginalizing the opposition.
This is simply false. For instance, Hoover successfully appointed 3 justices and only served a single term. Taft appointed 6! Harding appointed 4 despite only living 2 years of his term.
"Unprecedented in recent times" is weaselly but accurate. "Unprecedented" gives those who don't know better an inaccurate picture of the past and makes those who do know better wonder what else you're confidently wrong about.
None of that is to say I don't object to the shenanigans - I do.