No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States
A significant book was published today by the American publisher Liveright, authored by Professor Erwin Chemerinsky, titled:
No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States
This book, authored by one of America’s leading legal experts, a law professor at the University of California, and a former dean of the Berkeley School of Law at the same university, boldly asserts that the only way for a polarized America to avoid disintegration is to draft a new constitution.
Through 11 chapters, the author demonstrates the current state of the United States Constitution. The American Constitution has become a threat to American democracy and even to the very survival of the United States itself. The author analyzes in detail the inherent flaws in the American Constitution, such as its treatment of race, reliance on a corrupted electoral college, an undemocratically representative Senate, and the creation of a Senate that grants each state equal representation regardless of its size. Due to significant changes in America, particularly concerning demographics and national politics, and poor choices such as allowing gerrymandering and virtually unlimited obstruction of the Senate, the American government has increasingly failed. Additionally, allowing the Supreme Court, corporations, and the wealthy to spend unlimited amounts to elect their candidates has led to an irreparable cynicism that cannot be concealed and has affected the credibility of the electoral process.
The legal expert reaches a shocking conclusion: the founding document of the United States, which is nearly 250 years old, is no longer capable of enduring. Without significant and substantial changes to the American Constitution, the current constitution cannot be reformed, nor can the political system it created. It produces a government that is no longer able to address urgent issues, such as climate change and wealth inequality, which threaten America as well as the rest of the world.
The author also emphasizes that in the absence of serious changes to the American Constitution, Americans will inevitably move towards separation from the union, based on the recognition of a reality that is becoming increasingly evident politically, socially, and even in the media: what divides Americans as a nation is, in fact, greater than what unites them.
