The Constitution is remarkable. But it is not magical. The founders designed the Congress to be a check on the Executive. But it's arguable that their working assumptions for America's future excluded one in which a political party would be complicit in an a White House attempt to undermine that Constitution's democratic and Enlightenment underpinnings, and that that Presidential administration would enjoy the support of nearly one-half of the U.S. population. After all, most of our republic's founders seem to have assumed that there would be no political parties in our nation at all.
When Benjamin Franklin remarked to a fellow citizen that the Constitutional Convention had created "a republic, if you can keep it," I think he had in mind the reality that the Constitution is imperfect and might not withstand sufficiently strong and sustained anti-democratic and anti-Enlightenment sentiment within the republic itself. At the risk of sounding alarmist, hallmarks of the strength of such a sentiment are evident now. They're demonstrated by our President and many members of his administration and supported by millions of Americans and various media outlets. Consider: the scapegoating of minorities, the peddling in rank lies and conspiracy theories (such as former President Obama being Kenya-born or a non-existent invasion being funded by domestic political operatives), the rejection of standards of evidence, a disdain for the rule of law, evident in the President's desire to have the Department of Justice operate as a protective police force of and for his agenda and his administration and not for the nation, an embracing of social Darwinism (if you'll excuse the anachronism...the closest thing to that in Franklin's mind was probably a kind of archly cynical Machiavellianism), not to mention corruption and nepotism. And while the President himself is neither an ultimate or proximate cause of them, the increasing number of hate-crimes, including anti-Semitic ones, and the increasing visibility—the emboldening—of white nationalists in their pronouncements and activities speak to the rise of illiberal, anti-democratic ideas that the President does not discourage.
Last night's midterm elections were an important achievement for the Democratic Party, especially in light of the systemic obstacles of voter suppression and gerrymandering that the Democrats faced. But there is—it almost goes without saying—still work to do; it's just begun, actually. Last night's approximately 7% nationwide Democratic vote majority overall is less than Democrats managed against Republicans in midterms during George W. Bush's presidency. There are still hearts and minds to win, gerrymandering to be reversed, voter suppression to be stopped, the out-sized influence of corporate and oligarchic money to be lessened, the waning influence of relatively apolitical (or at least only slightly political) news sources to be addressed (if that's even possible), the rise in propaganda—especially via social media—to be countered, and a vitally important renaissance of civics education and awareness to be constructed. (I believe the undermining of all of the soft sciences and the humanities in U.S. education is a factor, one among many to be sure, in the rise of illiberalism, of which Trumpism is a symptom.)
That there is a political party in Congress, the Republican Party, that has not one member who would be a part of this project to bolster democracy's health is the kind of reality that will test the Constitution's viability. Our democracy is surprisingly robust. There is a lot of reason for hope. Nonetheless, the Constitution is an experiment, as is this republic. The republic may be stronger that Weimar or the ancient Roman republic but it is not any more than they were inherently a guaranteed or certain thing. Implicit in Franklin's words is the reality that it can be lost if it is not actively nurtured.
Image: Joseph Duplessis (1725–1802). Portrait of Benjamin Franklin. c. 1785. Oil on canvas. 28.5 in by 23.5 in. National Portrait Gallery, Washington D.C., U.S.A.
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