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TNR: The Democrats Are the Only True Defenders of the Constitution
TNR (archived) - The Democrats Are the Only True Defenders of the Constitution
Now that the right has abandoned the Founders, the Harris-Walz campaign has the chance to flaunt this winning rebrand. They should take it.
Simon Lazarus
October 15, 2024
For liberal leaders of all stripes, branding “polarization” as a dire threat to “democracy” is a constant meme. It was the central motif of President Joe Biden’s abbreviated reelection campaign, repeated most recently at his October 4 press conference. However, liberal leaders have been less prone to showcase a banner likely to broaden their non- and bipartisan appeal—namely, that the MAGA right’s antidemocratic shenanigans are threats to “the Constitution.”
It’s a missed opportunity. Ordinary, even apolitical Americans revere the Constitution, its text and its Framers’ design, as “secular scripture.” But contemporary Democratic and liberal politicians have studiously avoided speaking to that widespread faith; they have long declined to articulate a legally credible and politically marketable liberal vision of what the Constitution means, let alone deploy such a vision in support of their policy and political goals.
Within the last year or so, though, liberal political leaders, including President Joe Biden and nominee Kamala Harris and her campaign, have begun to shed their colleagues’ traditional timidity about calling out the Supreme Court, as its radical right supermajority nixes their policies and hobbles their constituencies. Still, they remained reluctant to offer substantive challenges to the right-wing justices’ blatant misinterpretations, circumventions, or flat-out disregard for constitutional or statutory provisions.
This year Representative Jamie Raskin has proven to be an exception. In May, Raskin rolled out punchy but weighty critiques of the right’s mangling of legal text and Framers’ design. Others, notably Senators Dick Durbin, Sheldon Whitehouse, Ron Wyden, and Representatives Jerrold Nadler and Hank Johnson, have also called out the justices’ excesses and proposed remedial measures. But these instances of pushback remain anomalies.
/snip
Now that the right has abandoned the Founders, the Harris-Walz campaign has the chance to flaunt this winning rebrand. They should take it.
Simon Lazarus
October 15, 2024
For liberal leaders of all stripes, branding “polarization” as a dire threat to “democracy” is a constant meme. It was the central motif of President Joe Biden’s abbreviated reelection campaign, repeated most recently at his October 4 press conference. However, liberal leaders have been less prone to showcase a banner likely to broaden their non- and bipartisan appeal—namely, that the MAGA right’s antidemocratic shenanigans are threats to “the Constitution.”
It’s a missed opportunity. Ordinary, even apolitical Americans revere the Constitution, its text and its Framers’ design, as “secular scripture.” But contemporary Democratic and liberal politicians have studiously avoided speaking to that widespread faith; they have long declined to articulate a legally credible and politically marketable liberal vision of what the Constitution means, let alone deploy such a vision in support of their policy and political goals.
Within the last year or so, though, liberal political leaders, including President Joe Biden and nominee Kamala Harris and her campaign, have begun to shed their colleagues’ traditional timidity about calling out the Supreme Court, as its radical right supermajority nixes their policies and hobbles their constituencies. Still, they remained reluctant to offer substantive challenges to the right-wing justices’ blatant misinterpretations, circumventions, or flat-out disregard for constitutional or statutory provisions.
This year Representative Jamie Raskin has proven to be an exception. In May, Raskin rolled out punchy but weighty critiques of the right’s mangling of legal text and Framers’ design. Others, notably Senators Dick Durbin, Sheldon Whitehouse, Ron Wyden, and Representatives Jerrold Nadler and Hank Johnson, have also called out the justices’ excesses and proposed remedial measures. But these instances of pushback remain anomalies.
/snip