A New Constitution Needed

 “How Democratic Is the American Constitution?” by Robert Dahl, 2001

Dahl is a Yale political science professor – very erudite, formal and no radical at all.  His dispassionate look at our archaic and anti-democratic Constitution proves we need a new one, even though that is not his intention.  I’m going to bullet-point his studious insights, as it’s the frantic holiday season and no one has time for anything.

1.          Nearly every bourgeois democracy of some solidity differs from the U.S. Constitutional order. They are parliamentary systems. The U.S. is an ancient outlier, a fact unknown to the U.S. public.

2.         “First Past the Post” election judgements bar multiparty democracy and enshrine a two party system.  “Proportional Representation” leads towards multi-party democracy, which better reflects the population.

3.         The Senate is explicitly undemocratic.  A bicameral legislature duplicates functions, with the Senate being the more aristocratic and unrepresentative.  Witness Wyoming and California both getting two senators. 

4.         The Electoral College is an undemocratic institution and actually elects the president based on a ‘states right’ – a fact that is now well-known, with 5 elections going to the popular vote loser. 

5.         Gerrymandering is primarily a result of ‘first-past-the-post’ majoritarian functioning.

6.         The Supreme Court was never meant to legislate in place of Congress, but that is just what it does.  A majority of 5 ‘justices’ hold the power.

7.         The presidential system of a virtual king with a ‘mandate’ is unique among advanced bourgeois democracies.  The rest are restrained by a parliament who can remove them... not solely for a crime.

8.         Amending the Constitution is virtually impossible, especially now, given the ‘state’s rights’ system of amendments. 

9.         Most of the framers disliked party factions, so had no understanding of how parties play a role in a democracy of any kind.  Now we have two factions of one class only.

Dahl explains how the ‘framers’ – he avoids ‘founding fathers’ – came up with each of these ideas, whether it was that point in history, a lack of experience, bad practical compromises between states, time desperation to ‘get ‘er dun’ or slavery. 

Dahl does not mention how the federal state structure actually benefits ‘state’s rights,’ which have been used to block progress for years.  Nor does he discuss property or corporate personhood or money, given the Constitution enshrines private property at all levels, which is its primary function.  In consequence slavery,  indentured servitude and class are not in his sights. He does not touch on the vast array of electoral compartments even within states. He seems to think that a ‘continuing democratic revolution,’ his form of liberal positivism, will assuage all these follies. Yet for a simple thing like repealing the Electoral College he holds out little hope, even after the presidential debacle in 2000.  He calls it ‘measured pessimism’ which hints that, even for him, the Constitutional legal system in the U.S. is unreformable.

Dahl ends his review of the Constitution by saying that it is not the constitutional systems in the 22 countries that determine ‘democracy’ but something far more fragile – similar cultural and political views.  So why did he write this book?  He also says:  “…ours is the most opaque, complex, confusing and difficult to understand.”  That is a measure of its 235 year old age.  He makes no general point about how each one of these issues has retarded democracy, held back the working classes or established a profound anti-democratic conservatism. He advocates a more democratic Constitution based on political equality, as it is not a ‘sacred text.’ But it seems it really is.     

Prior blogspot reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 17 year archive, using these terms: “The Cult of the Constitution,” “…the Marxists Working to Undermine Our Constitution” (J Stewart); “The Second Founding” (E Foner); “Democracy Incorporated” (Wolin); “Loaded – A Disarming History of the Second Amendment” (Dunbar-Ortiz); “Democracy in Chains,” “The Hidden History of Guns and the Second Amendment” (Hartmann); “Mythologies of State and Monopoly Power.”

And I got it at May Day Books, which has a large selection of used and cutout books for low to no prices right now.

Red Frog / December 22, 2024   Happy Solstice, you pagans!