Past, Present, and Future

Continuing the long struggle for democracy. By Luke Pickrell

Last month, the Democratic Constitution Blog published its 100th article. Our output has developed some momentum. We publish regular articles and continue interviewing well-respected academics, journalists, and activists. We are continuing our country’s rich tradition of democratic struggle, with the demands for a democratic constitution leading the way. 

But regularity can turn into passivity. It’s easy to start repeating what people already know. Are any of our readers unconvinced that America is something less than a democracy and the Constitution is a problem? We leverage potent critiques about our lack of democracy, but a million critiques don’t necessarily add up to anything more significant than a million critiques. Jacobin, the most prolific outlet on the left, is an example; the sum of all its articles doesn’t get us any closer to a viable strategy for political change.

Now is as good a time as any to reflect on the past year and discuss the blog’s purpose and vision for the future. We have yet to synthesize and clearly state what our project is all about. This article is an attempt to do so.

The Difference a Year(ish) Makes

Constitutional critiques have increased, primarily within sections of higher education and the media. It’s hard to imagine Daniel Lazare publishing another article about the Constitution “hiding in plain sight.” Critics include Aziz Rana, Erwin Chemerisnky, David Dayen, Michelle Goldberg, Daniel Ziblatt, Steven Levitsky, Jennifer Szalai, and Caleb Brennan. Constitutional supporters of various stripes, including Elon Musk, Laura Ingraham, Jonathan Turley, Yuval Levin, Louis Menand, and Nancy Pelosi, have taken notice. But even many of the Constitution’s supporters, including Levin and Pelosi, are hard-pressed to find anything resolutely good about the framer’s creation. Instead, they try to solve the problems caused by the Constitution using the Constitution’s rules: the classic “constitutional bind.”

Democratic republican discourse has also grown within sections of the activist left, largely thanks to the work of Marxist Unity Group members, including Rashad X and Steven R. MUG’s Constitution talk started early. In 2021, Parker McQueeney was instrumental in getting language about the Constitution into DSA’s Political Platform. Two years later, MUG members wrote the “Winning the Battle for Democracy Resolution.” National YDSA and Cleveland and San Diego chapters were inspired to create similar statements calling for a democratic constitution. In what seemed like a departure from its previous trajectory, MUG also contributed to the growth of the Democratic Constitution Blog by voting against creating an internal democratic constitution committee in late 2023. Democratic republican agitation needed to find a home elsewhere.

Outside of MUG and DSA, Jacobin has published three articles with critical takes on the Constitution in the past two months (including two of mine), and Lucas and I appeared on C. Derick Varn’s show, Varn Vlog.

Our Project

More people want to talk about the Constitution, which is undoubtedly a positive development. However, there’s a crater-sized difference between discussing the Constitution’s problems and actively publicizing the demand for a democratic republic based on universal and equal suffrage and a unicameral legislature.

The Democratic Constitution Blog is about attracting people who want to take action. We encourage small-d democrats who are not yet thinking about the Constitution, including socialists, to adopt a democratic republican perspective. We encourage those already thinking about the Constitution to publicize the demand for a democratic constitution through writing, sign-making, discussion, sloganeering, and whatever else you imagine. Consistency and clarity of terms are crucial. Still, there’s a lot of room for creativity in working toward a mass democratic movement and, ultimately, a political party with a democratic constitution at the center of its program and strategy.

It takes a certain amount of chutzpah and a dash of foolishness to think that the Democratic Constitution Blog can play a role in changing the country. But big things often have small beginnings, and everything starts somewhere. Tom Paine was just a man with a pen, paper, and (eventually) a publisher. He has never stopped influencing American politics. William Lloyd Garrison started The Liberator when most of the country was hostile to abolitionism. He published his paper every week for thirty-five years, never missing a weekly edition. After being blacklisted for his left-wing views, I.F. Stone, with help from his wife, began publishing a weekly newsletter from his basement. Many people who read Stone’s weekly fought against the Vietnam War and Macarthysim; neither of these struggles seemed winnable then. In 1960, four Black freshmen sat at a nondescript lunch counter and asked for service. Their actions helped create the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and sparked a new stage in the civil rights movement.

Five years before the 1905 revolution, Lenin described a Russian worker whose lone voice cried out for a democratic constitution but was met with derisive laughs. But Lenin wasn’t laughing: when the workers learned to connect their economic demands with the struggle for democracy, he said, “Then the cry ‘A constitution!’ will not be an isolated one, but will come from the throats of thousands and hundreds of thousands, when it will no longer be comical, but menacing.”

The movement for a democratic republic is still in its early stages and far from menacing. Right now, the blog has the force of three or four voices, not hundreds of thousands. It’s frustrating to believe something is necessary and correct but not see the same sense of urgency or understanding in many others. We wish the democratic movement would grow faster, that democratic republican consciousness would roll down like a mighty stream and wash away our ancient Constitution.

But things take time, and a certain amount of historical recovery might be necessary before the demand for a democratic constitution catches on. As Sam Moyn mentioned, a good deal of this project is about education. No two people become convinced of the need for universal and equal rights in precisely the same way, but historical grounding is crucial. To this end, Gil Schaeffer is working on a reading group curriculum about the history of the battle for democracy and equal rights, starting with John Ball and the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 and the Levellers three centuries later. Lucas and I are excited to integrate the reading group into our political agitation.

Strategy

The Democratic Constitution Blog offers something all too rare on the left: a clear strategy for political change. With the power to make laws, a democratic republic in the U.S. would have vast implications at home and abroad, including the possibility of transforming workplace ownership, resource management, and foreign policy. Without democracy, the working class is severely handicapped, and our political and social horizons are restricted. A democratic republic would open up many more possibilities. Therefore, the first task of the working class is to win the battle for democracy.