Below is my column in Fox.com on the poll released last week showing an increasing number of citizens have lost faith in our constitutional system and now view violence as warranted to silence those with opposing views.
It is a crisis of faith that represents the greatest possible threat to our Republic. The loss of faith and fealty constitutes one of the greatest crises that our nation has faced since its foundation.
Here is the column:
A recent startling poll shows that a majority of voters not only view the opposing party as a threat to the nation but justifying violence to combat their agenda. The poll captures a crisis of faith that I have been writing about for over a decade as an academic and a commentator. Many now question democracy as a sustainable system of government. It represents the single greatest threat to this nation: a citizenry that has lost faith not just with our system of government but with each other.
The polls by the University of Virginia Center for Politics shows a nation at war with itself. Fifty-two percent of Biden supporters say Republicans are now a threat to American life while 47 percent of Trump supporters say the same about Democrats.
Among Biden supporters, 41 percent now believe violence is justified “to stop [Republicans] from achieving their goals.” An almost identical percentage, 38 percent, of Trump supporters now embrace violence to stop Democrats.
Not surprisingly, many of these people have lost faith in democracy. Some 31 percent of Trump supporters believe that the nation should explore alternative forms of government. Roughly a quarter (24 percent) of Biden supporters also question the viability of democracy.
Faith is the one thing that no system of government can do without. Without faith in the underlying values of a constitutional system, authority rests on a mix of coercion and capitulation.
For years, I have written about this growing loss of faith and how it has been fueled by our intellectual and political elites. In the echo chamber of news and social media, citizens constantly hear how the opposing party is composed of “traitors” and how the constitutional system works to protect enemies of the people.
Viewers now get a steady diet of figures like MSNBC commentator Elie Mystal who called the U.S. Constitution “trash” and argued that we should simply just dump it.
In a New York Times column, “The Constitution Is Broken and Should Not Be Reclaimed,” law professors Ryan D. Doerfler of Harvard and Samuel Moyn of Yale called for the Constitution to be “radically altered” to “reclaim America from constitutionalism.”
Georgetown University Law School Professor Rosa Brooks went on MSNBC’s “The ReidOut” to lash out at Americans becoming “slaves” to the U.S. Constitution and that the Constitution itself is now the problem for the country.
They are part of the radical chic that has become the norm in academia — and widely embraced by the media.
According to these law professors the problem is not just our Constitution, but constitutionalism in general.
Others have argued that key protections or institutions should just be ignored. In a recent open letter, Harvard law professor Mark Tushnet and San Francisco State University political scientist Aaron Belkin called upon President Joe Biden to defy rulings of the Supreme Court that he considers “mistaken” in the name of “popular constitutionalism.”
“Popular constitutionalism” appears a form of discretionary or ad hoc compliance with constituitional law. If only “popular” constitutional rules are followed, the Constitution itself becomes a mere pretense for whatever the shifting majority or forming mob demands.
Politicians have also contributed to this crisis of faith in challenging constitutional values or core institutions. Members like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has questioned the need for a Supreme Court.
Others like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) have called for the packing of the Supreme Court to simply create an immediate liberal majority.
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) thrilled his base by going to the steps of the Supreme Court to declare “I want to tell you, Gorsuch. I want to tell you, Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price! You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”
It is little surprise that one man showed up at the home of Justice Bret Kavanaugh to kill him for his “awful decisions.”
Conversely, former President Donald Trump has regularly denounced his political opponents as “traitors” and “enemies of the people.” He recently declared “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!”
With leaders engaging in such reckless rhetoric, it is hardly surprising that the Constitution itself is now viewed as threat to our nation rather than the very thing that defines us. It is designed to restrain the majority and protect those who are the least popular in our society.
In the end, a constitution remains a covenant not between citizens and their government but between each other as citizens. It demands a leap of faith; a commitment that despite our differences we will defend the rights of our neighbors.
If nothing else, the Constitution has one thing to recommend it: we are still here. It is a Constitution that has survived economic and political upheavals. It survived a Civil War in which hundreds of thousands were killed.
It is not a particularly poetic document. It was written by the ultimate wonk, James Madison. If you want truly inspirational prose, try any of the French constitutions. Of course, they had more practice since they regularly failed. Other countries based their constitutions on aspirational statements of the values that we shared. The Madisonian system spent as much time on what divided us; it not only recognized the danger of factions but created a system to bring such divisions to the surface where they could be addressed.
The danger of other systems was realized when these divisions were left below the surface where they would fester and explode in the streets of Paris. The American Constitution allowed for a type of controlled implosion toward the center of the system; these factional interests would be expressed and vented in the legislative branch. The Madisonian system does not hide our divisions; it invites their expression.
The question is whether we have reached a time when the things that divide us will now overcome what unites us. This is not our first age of rage. Indeed, at the start of our Republic, rivaling parties were not just figuratively trying to kill each other; they were actually trying to kill each other through laws like the Alien and Sedition Acts. Thomas Jefferson would refer to the term of his predecessor John Adams as “the reign of the witches.”
Yet, that history is no guarantee that it can survive our current age of rage. The relentless attacks on the constitution from the political, media, and academic elite has turned many into constitutional atheists. Yet, the future of our constitutional system may rest with the rising number of constitutional agnostics — those citizens who are simply disconnected or disinterested in the defense of our founding principles.
Philosopher John Stuart Mill warned in 1867 that all it takes for evil to prevail is for “good men [to] look on and do nothing.”
We are now in an existential struggle to preserve the values that founded the most successful constitutional system in the history of the world.
It is our legacy that now can be either boldly defended by a grateful people or lost in the whimper of a disinterested generation.
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If nothing else, the Constitution has one thing to recommend it: we are still here. It is a Constitution that has survived economic and political upheavals. It survived a Civil War in which hundreds of thousands were killed.
I have no idea what this means. Is the author glad that actual physical copy of the document still exists? That we were smart enough to protect it behind humidity controlled displays that preserve it?
Because anyone who has ever been groped by TSA, had their bank accounnt frozen by the IRS, been randomly stopped by the State Police at a sobriety check point, had a position they earned given to a less deserving candidate just because of their race, sex or disability, or any other number of blatantly unconstitutional acts that occur daily in the hundreds of millions, understands clearly that the Constitutional protections that document guarantees are null and void.
The Constitution is a set of rules on how to play the game. We are required to insure that everyone follows the rules. Blame us, not the rules.
Here’s some fun, violence embracing. Flew from Oregon to Arizona to attend this last weekend.
An old school buddy of mine helps put this on….enjoy ! (turn sound up!)
Younger generations have been programmed to accept socialism in gov. schools. Sooner or later this country will be ruled by a UN dictatorship like the E.U. is now. Within this decade for sure. The lifestyle will be nothing like the one we have now, it will be hell on earth because sorry parents didn’t instill values and ethics and home school.
The parallel to the original statement “a democracy in name only” is: “a democratic representative republic in name only”. We are there and history demands blood before a sea change.
Power becomes accessible to revolutionaries when the existing order loses two vital assets upon which the maintenance of any government depends.
The first element is the at least passive and tacit consent of the governed, and the second is credible monopoly of armed force.
When the revolutionary movement has both the will and the capacity to commit acts of armed insurrection against the state, and does so with impunity, i.e., the perpetrators are not caught or punished, then the state has lost the credible monopoly of force which is the foundation of all political power. There is then an alternative, a real choice, because persons other than those sanctioned by the state are exercising power over the lives and destinies of others.
HSF,
There is a reason the left in this country hates and ignores
The Constitution,; it is a list of things government CAN’T do
to We The People. It’s a restraint on what they really want to do.
Shame on us letting Leviathan take as much as it has in ignoring
the document. Jefferson, Mason, and especially Madison understood
evil men would eventually sleaze there way to tyranny, so they gave us
the 1st and 2nd Amendment and they are chipping away at both to an alarming
extent, but if they ever get the guns, it’s all over but the mass murder.
Only one side of the divide are traitors to the country. They aren’t hard to
identify, they DESPISE the Constitution, and America as founded.
In reality, they despise western civilization.
Colorado,
The constitution has no provision to prevent morons [like yourself] from contracting with the government outside the scope of the constitution.
I know you are a moron because, you have a driving license. This is a contract where you signed away your freedoms for the privilege of becoming responsible for complying with every code and statute your state piles on.
Pay ALL your taxes and shut the fuck up, hypocrite.
I know you are fucking loser hypocrite because you are here witlessly typing away as if you made a point but you are somehow not in jail. Pot AND kettle.
Eat shit, Langley.
When a government legalizes extreme taxation and borrows and spends their constituents into oblivion all the while bit by bit taking away their basic constitutional rights what other choice is there but that the people take back what is rightfully theirs by any means necessary to prevent it’s complete collapse and tyrannical takeover by the thieves responsible?
Freedom ain’t free , bruh. If you don’t want to pay for forever wars, border jumpers and anus probers in blue, then move to North Korea !!!
Reeeeeeeee!
What’s about to happen was always going to happen because it HAD to happen and any doubt on that topic is pure human hubris. The wages of sin is Death. There are no exceptions.
how astute
CVS bruh got no respect for the `Constitution …We all created equals, my good man.
Sadly, the employee probably got fired within seconds … and the would-be thief sued CVS within hours …
It’s OK.
The employee should also sue CVS if he is fired.
He was acting in self defense; the nig swung first.
It is the employers responsibility to protect their employees from workplace violence.
funny you mention cvs —
they have closed several stores around here recently,all in high traffic locations —
CVS prices are too high, stopped shopping there several yrs ago.
No one has ever been governed by a document.
We were, when our leaders followed it.
“people have lost faith in democracy…”
Some of us never had any to begin with.
I’ve lost faith in 90% of our country to know what is right much less do what is right
Hell, I’ve lost faith in Jon Turley after reading that article. He used to understand that the US Constitution didn’t establish a democracy. Maybe he got a clot shot and it scrambled his brain.
I say 100% cynicism, countyr has no borders, no longer a country Lawlessness prevails.
Here’s a couple of fun things for the day.
Our ups driver showed us his pic first.
Outside perspective
For one thing, we’re not a democracy. People need to stop parroting that stupid Democrat narrative.
Also, I don’t think people have lost faith in the constitution. The left use violence to destroy it and usher in a marxist 2-tiered justice system that ignores the constitution and instead rules by decree.
People see this and it of course creates animosity, not to mention, when elections are stolen and the courts rule based on your skin color or political ideology it tends to breed violent retaliation.
Passes himself off as a conservative “Constitutional Scholar”. Turns out Jonathan Turley is a clown, too.
“Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” John Adams
I interpret that to mean they knew full well it was full of holes and loopholes and inadequacies.
When the economy collapses chaos will ensue and new government will emerge and life will never be the same in the US. Oh, and a lot of people will be dead. My guess is China will run the world or maybe India they have to most people, just a guess.
Number of people is irrelevant; the ability to effectively project power on the known world is key. Portugal was a global power at one time from the strength of their navy. I don’t see China or India as individual countries projecting global power.
***** There is a news story out on the web this morning that Vlad Putin (71) has suffered a cardiac arrest and is close to death. He is on life support and doctors are not optimistic.
Not sure how true this is and there is also chatter that they will continue with a Putin body double for stability.
Sounds right up there with putin has cancer and days to live, his military is rebelling because of Ukies and will collapse any day now, yada yada yada… more usausa propaganda that money laundered un ukie is a great deal and send more.
moos- Agree, moos. There is so much fabrication in the news, I believe nothing. I’m just the reporter.
Posting propaganda from known propagandists isn’t just being a reporter.
If you see something that smells off, it likely is. Give it the Bongino treatment and wait 24 – 72 hrs for the truth to surface, before reposting suspect shyte.
Yep, Bongino. Are there any so called “conservative” radio talking heads that are not “Stand With Israel” types?
Screamin’ Mark Levin sounded as though he was having a temper tantrum over “Stand With Israel” yesterday with the latest war fiasco crap.
Tex- Putin is 71, he’s going to die from something in his elder years. It’s not unthinkable for a old guy to have a coronary. I plainly stated I didn’t know if it was true.
Would anyone here believe the headline, “Putin Dead At 99”?? Doubt it.
I think I saw that on the cover of a tabloid last week at the grocery store. Saw a headline on one ,Globe I believe the name, that Donald and wife are divorcing.
Anonymous Conservative commented on that this am….
Literally, some rando civilian put up this Telegram channel, which just posts, non-stop that Putin has cancer, Putin is dying, his neurological system is failing, and on and on. It always turns out to be completely fake. But our media reports it like it was an official announcement of the Russian government.
“But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain – that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case it is unfit to exist.”
― Lysander Spooner, No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/238917.Lysander_Spooner
.
.
“Having a Constitutional political party is a little like telling a car-jacker, “You’re not allowed to do what you’re doing! And if you don’t stop it right now, we are going to ask you to order yourself to be nice! And if that doesn’t work, we are going to try to elect a new car-jacker, who we hope will tell himself not to steal our cars! … But at least we’re not like those silly utopian anarchist kooks out there who refuse to work within the system for change! Those crazy people say there should be NO car-jackers at all!”
― Larken Rose
“Some of us realize the self-evident truth that no election, no constitution, no legislation, and no other pseudo-religious political ritual can bestow upon anyone the right to rule another. Nothing can make a man into a rightful master; nothing can make a man into a rightful slave.” — Larken Rose
.
The Reluctant Anarchist, by Joe Sobran:
Hans-Hermann Hoppe . . . argued that no constitution could restrain the state. Once its monopoly of force was granted legitimacy, constitutional limits became mere fictions it could disregard; nobody could have the legal standing to enforce those limits. The state itself would decide, by force, what the constitution “meant,” steadily ruling in its own favor and increasing its own power. This was true a priori, and American history bore it out.
READ REST: http://www.sobran.com/reluctant.shtml
The constitution is a life-jacket in a sea of powerism and totalitarianism. The Founders understood that human nature includes individuals who are, or become, addicted to power. The Constitution was written, and remains, our best protection against them.
“There are only two parties, them’s that got power and them’s that want to take it away.” (Dad) The elected create laws, rules, and systems to privilege themselves over challengers. “It is not fair to make challengers run against incumbents, make the incumbents run a up or down election with challengers running against each other.”
Dad just missed one point. The up down election is another term in office or run the gauntlet like Arnold did in Running Man. Live TV and that last politician who sold you out is getting killed, just add free popcorn and we are at Roman levels of decay.
Just saying, the definition of insanity is believing in the Constitution over and over again and getting the same results every time.
Even those old white guys in wigs that wrote the author’s Holy Constitution questioned democracy. They were actually smart enough to see democracy always ends with Mob Rule so they set to make a republic.
Dishonest Abe and The Progressives have set to transform Our Republic into a democracy…with disastrous results.
God bless you! People in power have so twisted weaponized the constitution and laws as to render them the opposite of what they state. And you want us to fight back with our hands in our pockets? Should we respect the constitution as they explain it to us? Should we respect the constitution for being the document that brought us to this exact place? Or should we make reasonable arrangements for our security, freedom and posterity. As is the right of a free people, and a privilege afforded only to an armed people.
Good luck,
Conservatives will do nothing about the left allowing hoards of illegals in and trashing cities and towns. Not enough men with T or spines to stand up and take control of community and state gov. and demand border protection. Border guards are cowards and do nothing. Governors along the border states incl.
One of several reasons I pulled the Mosins out of cosmoline. Only regret I did not purchase a PSL when they were $600. Thought that was high. Now 4 times that. Too much $$$.
…That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security…
— some white men, many years ago
Time to start abolishing.
Maybe if the clowns stop pushing the United states as a democracy and start stating what it is, a Republic, maybe we can get back to business…
It’s a jewish kleptocracy.
Our Constitution survived up until recently because people paid fealty to it and what it stood for and now that our government has turned corrupt and shunned that great document, the people have lost faith in their government and consider our government to be mostly headed by criminals who use their tactics with impunity.
Our people are not rejecting our Constitution, they are no longer being taught or tested on their knowledge of it in our schools, which used to have a class called “CIVICS”, thus their ignorance of it looks like they may be rejecting it because they still actually believe that our elected officials abide by it. A HINT: THEY DON’T !!!
The CONstitution has always been a con.
We had a constitution: The Articles of Confederation. The CONstitution was a coup-d’etat . . . in 1787. We never seceded from the crown – nor the Eurobankster cartel. This is their endgame.
👍👍
Any constitution IS violence. What part of enFORCEd is hard to understand? These folks are merely bypassing the customary pretense to civility and restraint, since the CONstitution has been exposed over time for what it is.
As always ,our constitutional crisis will be resolved in favor of those with the most guns. They always make the rules.
our constitutional crisis will be resolved in favor of those making the best use of their guns
FIFY
WHEN THE GOVERNMENT DECLARES THEY WANT YOUR GUNS,,A FULL BLOWN DICTATORSHIP IS AT HAND,time to stand up,OR allow your children to be SLAVES the rest of their life ,and it will be a short one for them,SADLY THE MEN IN AMERICA have become the worse pussies on earth,AND THE RUSSIANS AND CHINESE KNOW IT..COWARDS WILL NOT FIGHT,now you know your future,ITS OVER FOR ALL OF AMERICA,YOUR HERO”S who took an OATH TO GOD,will soon be joining all those in hell and they DO NOT CARE,YOUR ABOUT TO SEE HOW REALLY EVIL THEY ARE…
Like old Georgie Bush said….”The constitution…..it’s just a goshdarn piece of paper”…or something to that effect. People realize that their “leaders” treat the Constitution as so much toilet paper, so it’s not that the “People” have lost faith in the constitution, it’s that they understand no matter how much they revere the founding documents the dirtbags in DC will continue to usurp more and more power for themselves and don’t give a rat’s behind about the people they are supposed to represent….and they sure as hell don’t follow the Constitution. I guarantee almost every one of these criminals have NEVER read it….And you wonder why the People consider violence a viable alternative?
I don’t.
Anybody questioning violence as a viable tool clearly has not studied history.
“…our Republic.”
abe lenin lincoln snuffed out the republic in 1865.
The US Constitution is a dead letter, and it has not been enforced for decades now.
Remember the Monty Python skit? The Constitution is a Norwegian Blue Parrot. The self styled patriots and conservatives of America are like the clerk trying to make excuses for a dead parrot.
The founding fathers said, “our form of government was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the governance of any other.”
FIRST THING!! WE ARE NOT A DEMOCRACY WE ARE A “REPUBLIC” OR WE WERE UNTIL THE PAST 30 YEARS. NOW WE ARE HEADED TO EITHER A REAL CIVIL WAR OR BALKANIZATION OF THE USA. WE ARE ALREADY UNDER THREAT OF CHICOM INVASION FORCES THAT HAVE STREAMED ACROSS OUR SOUTHERN BORDER WITH THE HELP OF THE DEMOCRAT AND REPUBLICAN PARTY, WE HAVE UNTOLD NUMBERS OF MUSLIM TERRORIST ALSO STREAMING ACROSS THE BORDER, WE HAVE MILLIONS OF WELL FED PAOPLE FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD WITH CELL PHONES ALSO INVADING OUR COUNTRY FROM NORTH AND SOUTH NOW. WE HAVE A FEDERAL GOVERNMENT THAT WOULD RATHER RAID AMERICAN CITIZENS IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT FOR EXPRESSING THEIR POLITICAL OPINION THAN GO AFTER CCP SPIES, MUSLIM TERRORIST OR DRUG AND HUMAN TRAFFICKING CARTELS. MAYBE WE DO NEED A CIVIL WAR OR REVOLUTION TO SET THINGS RIGHT.
Excuse me…. who do you work for? It is those up there that are rejecting our Constitution and using VIOLENCE to do so.
From the JAB to the BLM to TSA searches.
Well, the Norwegians got some things right … (until it was scuppered)
Don’t pin this on the American citizen…this bitch is rotting from the head down, you only have to observe our fake President and his clown cabinet as a prime example of the rotting disease.
Its NOT a democracy, ass eyes, it’s a Republic. The founders knew Democracy was shit.
*was* a republic.
Now it’s ZOG, all the way down.
To bad those under 40 couldn’t absorb through blood or whatever all the misery of the WW’s. The actual horrors of the concentration camps. I wish that would have transferred through the DNA to these godless youth.