Constitutional crisis -- or crisis of faith?
Jill Lepore's "We The People" explores the past and future of the Constitution, plus another quiz on the founding document
625,000 government workers furloughed, without pay. National Guard troops sent into Chicago, unwanted by Illinois’ governor or the city’s mayor — both of whom Trump has threatened to put in jail. In Pam Bondi, we have a U.S. attorney general with no regard for her position’s guardrails, and a state AG — New York’s Letitia James—being prosecuted for actually doing her job. Is our Constitution working for us anymore?
In her new book, We The People, Jill Lepore has written a compelling analysis of our current crisis — and a defense of the Constitution’s enduring ability to support our democracy. Her take is in stark contrast to that of originalists such as the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who viewed the Constitution as a vehicle meant to stall progress. Many times, he gleefully declared it “Dead. Dead. Dead!”
According to Lepore, the framers meant for the Constitution to be a living document, evolving with changing times. But that “sleeping giant” has been in a coma for decades, she laments.
Has the Constitution failed to keep pace with the times? Is that the root of the current crisis? When voters were polled in late May by States United as to whether we are in the midst of such a crisis, a majority across parties — 57 percent overall, and more than 80 percent of Democrats — agreed. Have people lost faith in the founding documents?
“The crisis we’re in,” Lepore recently observed in an interview with Foreign Policy, “is one in which the President believes if he says it’s constitutional, it is, and if he doesn’t, it isn’t. There’s no provision for such a thing in the Constitution itself.” The bottom line: Trump will do whatever he wants until something or someone stops him — and that’s a crisis.
The Constitution’s long, messy, intriguing history will give us quite a lot to talk about when Jill Lepore joins us live later this week. In the meantime, for our Book Club members, below you’ll find part two of our pop quiz testing your knowledge of the U.S. Constitution. Join us when we meet with Lepore this Friday, October 17, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, and then again on Wednesday, October 22, also at 12:30 p.m. Eastern.
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