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How to explain to libs in crisis that the US Constitution is antidemocratic (piefed.social)

submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Part of what I see with 50501/Hands Off protests is that they have a theme of "defending the Constitution" from Trump. This is really a somewhat conservative position and doesn't have much historical rigor to it.

Prof. Aziz Rana of Boston College Law School is having a moment on Jacobin Radio right now. His basic thesis is that the Constitutional order is so deeply antidemocratic that the left argued with itself and the liberals over whether to focus efforts on challenging it in the early 20th Century. In the broad sweep of history since then, Americans have come to view the Constitution as a sacred text, but in fact, that order is part of what gives the Republicans and the far right their advantages despite losing the popular vote.

The shorter interview: https://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html#S250424 (April 24, 2025)
The 4-part long interview: https://thedigradio.com/archive/ (see the Aziz Rana episodes starting in April 2025) - Part 4 isn't up yet.

So why should we venerate the Constitution, when it holds us back from real, direct democracy? I think part of what our liberal friends and family hold onto is a trust in the Constitution and the framers. They weren't geniuses, they were landowners worried about kings taking their property. Use these interviews, or Prof. Rana's book, to handle those arguments.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I think what people cling to regarding the Constitution, is not that it protects democracy, but that it's intended to protect the public from authoritarian rule. It was written explicitly in response to the dictatorial behavior of King George lll.

The whole "democracy" part was always intended to be flawed, in favor of the wealthy landowners that wrote it...but the protections provided by it, were meant to prevent any future leader from ever threatening their personal freedoms.

It's really too bad they never hard-coded the steps necessary to actually prevent a dictator from taking power, though. That sure would have been useful right about now.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

The problem with your interpretation is that the constitution was not intended to protect the public from authoritarian rule. It was designed to empower the landowning merchant class above that of feudal nobility and organized religion while protecting their position of power from the "tyranny of the masses" (the working class). I would say it is accomplishing that quite well. That merchant class is quite free.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

I'm fairly sure it is in one of the earlier of the amendments, actually.

As far as I understand it, the framers' viewpoint was not "here are the limits on government, everything aside from this, we allow it to do, here are the rules for addressing problems" but more along the lines of "here's how a government can earn for itself the consent of the governed, and if it's not earning that then it's up to the governed to adjust its parameters, and if they can't manage that, they deserve what they get." If that makes sense. They took a much more old-world approach to the realities of power than modern first-world societies do.