Forward and Over
Leave "leaders" like Newsom and Jeffries behind. By Luke Pickrell
On Saturday, more than five million people gathered to protest Donald Trump. Meanwhile, the President’s Flag Day parade went exactly as expected, burning through tens of millions of dollars and tearing up the pavement along Constitution Avenue. The next day, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries appeared on MSNBC and encouraged listeners to “uplift and cherish the Constitution and create a better America.” Asked for a specific proposal, Jeffries sounded like a grade-schooler in civics class: “We’re a democracy, and in that democracy, you have three separate and co-equal branches of government.” He called on the legislative branch — “Just a handful — four in the House, four in the Senate” — to do the “right thing” and vote against Trump’s agenda.
Jeffries sounded a lot like Gavin Newsom, who urged listeners during a nationwide address, “It’s time for all of us to stand up… Justice Brandeis said it best: in a democracy, the most important office is not president, it’s certainly not governor. The most important office is office of citizen [sic].”
“We’re a democracy, and in that democracy…”? The “office of citizen”? That two of the Democratic Party’s most powerful figures can sound so disconnected — and so plain dumb — hardly inspires confidence. It just goes to show how constitutional reverence rots the brain.
A lot of people are really pissed off. And if Saturday’s protests are any indication, at least some are ready to do something with all that energy.
Like Newsom and Jeffries, the organizers behind No Kings — including leaders of Indivisible, the 50501 Movement, the American Federation of Teachers, and the ACLU — believe in the fundamental goodness of the Constitution. Their faith is firm, or at least firm enough that cracking it isn’t worth the effort. Like Newsom and Jeffries, these aren’t the leaders we need.
To succeed, a future movement for a democratic political system will necessarily — either implicitly or explicitly — take a page from V.I. Lenin and go “forward… and over” all the people who talk the democratic talk but fail to walk the democratic walk.
It's never been more apparent that the principles of universal and equal rights proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence can’t be realized under the current Constitution. Leave the obstinate and naysayers behind. Movements are not built by kowtowing to the likes of Newsom, Jeffries, or the brains behind No Kings. Instead, we must expose their counterproductive and downright shameful subservience to the Constitution and unite with those who want democracy — who want control over their lives.
Many Americans already know what they don’t want. The task now is to find those who know what they do want: a new constitution.