66 Chapter 2Chapter 2 || The Constitution and the FoundingThe Constitution and the Foundingof government the power to check the others (and the additional check of divided
power across levels of government). Therefore, when the presidency starts to
drift out of the mainstream of American politics, Congress, the courts, and state
governments can reel it back in. We’ve seen throughout the chapter how our
constitutional system has allowed the courts and Congress to effectively check
the more extreme aspects of Trump’s agenda that have alarmed pundits on the
left, from Trump’s proposed immigration and environmental policies, to the failure
to “repeal and replace” Obamacare, to the early versions of his travel bans, to his
relationship with Russia. Even the military stood up to their commander in chief, both
when President Trump tweeted that transgender people would be banned from
the military (they said that a tweet is not a policy, so the president should get back
to them if he had an actual policy) and in their strong rebuke of Trump’s equivocal
response to a white supremacist’s running down a woman in Charlottesville. And
perhaps most significantly, our government has not allowed a Twitter war between
President Trump and North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, to escalate into a nuclear
war. This self-corrective feature of our constitutional system means that no branch
of government will attain disproportionate power for very long, it and has kept the
political system stable.
Even more fundamentally, the Constitution promotes long-term stability by
providing the basis for resolving conflict through elections and representative
government rather than by taking up arms. Losers of one round of elections know that
they have an opportunity to compete in the next election and that their voices can be
heard in another part of the government. Indeed, after heavy losses in 2016, Democrats
were especially energized for the competitive 2018 midterms.
Congress, the president, and the Supreme Court all must interpret the Constitution
in the normal course of fulfilling their institutional roles, which also helps preserve an
institutional balance of power. Having multiple interpreters of the Constitution is built
into our system. The Trump presidency has also compelled the general public to become
more interested in the Constitution.^29 Maybe with enough attention, those public-
opinion polls showing that Americans are more familiar with The Simpsons than with the
three branches of government can be reversed. If Americans are more informed about
the Constitution, they can become even more significant interpreters of the Constitution.
Finally, the general and ambiguous language of the Constitution means that
both supporters and opponents of the president can find evidence for their views.
It is impossible to know exactly how the emoluments clause should apply to foreign
officials staying in a Trump-owned property or whether the president can pardon
himself, because these constitutional questions have never come up before. Therefore,
answers to these questions, and the broader health of our American democracy, will
continue to be determined by the outcome of the political process and democratic
elections as established by the Constitution. While there is no guarantee that our nation
will be around for another 230 years, these past two years have demonstrated the
Constitution’s resilience and strength once again.
A leading constitutional scholar, Walter Murphy, addressed the relevance of the
Constitution this way: “The ideals it enshrines, the processes it prescribes, and the
actions it legitimizes must either help to change its citizenry or at a minimum reflect their
current values. If a constitution does not articulate, at least in general terms, the ideals
that form or will re-form its people and express the political character they have... ,
it will soon be replaced or atrophy.”^30 The Constitution’s ability to change with the times
and reflect its citizens’ values has enabled it to remain relevant and important today.
Its flexibility and general language mean that there will never be definitive answers
to the conflict over its meaning, but they ensure that these debates will be enduring
and meaningful.They keep talking about drafting
a constitution for Iraq. Why don’t
we just give them ours? It was
written by a lot of really smart
guys. It’s worked for over 200
years, and hell, we’re not using it
anymore.—Jay LenoWhat’s
Your
Take?
Have Trump’s actions
as president threatened
democracy? Or has our
system of government as
laid out in the Constitution
worked to keep conflicts over
Trump’s policies in check?Full_03_APT_64431_ch02_030-069.indd 66 16/11/18 1:35 PM