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In recent years, the American progressive movement has got into the despicable habit of describing any institution that stands in the way of its ambitions as “illegitimate” — or worse. This tendency has no limiting principle, it is grounded in nothing more noble than a desire for short-term gain, and it often makes no logical sense. There is no rigorous argument on display; there is only whining. The leaders of the Democratic Party have narrowed its national appeal to the point at which it is less competitive in the Senate than it once was? The Senate must be “undemocratic.” The Supreme Court is overturning precedents that were once acknowledged by their supporters as being “untethered from the constitution’s text, understanding and structure”? That Court must be “fascist.” The Constitution does not provide everything that progressives want it to? It’s “actually trash.”
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“Ambition must be made to counteract ambition,” insisted James Madison. “Not so,” say today’s progressives. In June, the Court insisted that Article I of the U.S. Constitution accords the power to make law to Congress, rather than to the executive branch, and, in response, a host of progressive lawmakers lined up to complain. “Fascist SCOTUS,” Rashida Tlaib tweeted. And why was it “fascist”? Because, in Tlaib’s words, it had ruled that, henceforth, “the federal government will be restricted from regulating anything of significance in the absence of a clear Congressional directive to do so.” What, one must ask, does Tlaib believe she does around here?
It is impossible to divorce these denunciations from their broader implications. When progressives demand the abolition of the Electoral College, or of the Senate, they are really calling for an end to the federal system. When they vilify the Supreme Court — or denigrate the originalist approach it is now taking — they are really impugning the Constitution. And when they decry the return of major questions to the voters — via the branches in which they themselves serve — they are really telegraphing that they do not believe that the public can be trusted to govern itself.
At National Review, we take a different approach. We believe that the Constitution should be enforced as it is written — and altered only by a vote of the people. We believe that the Senate and the Electoral College help to ensure a clear delimitation of power between the federal government and the states. We believe that Article I’s guarantee that “all legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States” means exactly what it says. And, above all, we believe that trying to destroy or mangle the world’s oldest written constitution because it is frustrating one’s transient political plans is a game for knaves and fools.
The rules of the American order have been clear for centuries. There is nothing that is suddenly “undemocratic” or “fascist” or “trash” about them. On the contrary: They remain as ingenious, as enduring, and as beautiful as they ever were. If you agree, we hope you will help National Review in its attempt to preserve them for the next generation. If you get in early, your donation will be matched up to $100,000 by a generous donor.
Thank you, and here’s to the next 233 years!
