Resources

A list of articles, books, interviews, etc., for understanding the United States, the Constitution, and the ongoing struggle for democracy.

Articles

• Aziz Rana, Democracy Was a Decolonial Project

• Aziz Rana, It Would Be Great if the United States Were Actually a Democracy

• Caleb Brennan, It’s Time to Reimagine the Constitutional Order

• Daniel Lazare, Abolish the Senate

• Daniel Lazare, A Constitutional Revolution

• Daniel Lazare, Constitutional Convention

• David Dayen, America Is Not a Democracy

• Douglas J. Amy, The Presidency: Too Much Unaccountable Power

• Gary Berton, Burying Thomas Paine

• Gil Schaeffer, You Can’t Use Weatherman

• Gil Schaeffer, Marxism, the Democratic Republic, and the Undemocratic U.S. Constitution

• Gil Schaeffer, Taking Democracy Seriously

• Lisa L. Miller, Amending Constitutional Myths

• Lisa L. Miller, Checks and Balances, Veto Exceptionalism, and Constitutional Folk Wisdom: Class and Race Power in American Politics

• Louis Michael Seidman, The Secret History of American Constitutional Skepticism

• Luke Pickrell, Only a Democratic Constitution Can Stop Trumpism

• Luke Pickrell, More and More People Are Saying It: Scrap the Constitution

• Luke Pickrell, The Constitution Gave Us This Mess

• Marxist Unity Group Debate on the Democratic Republic

• Michael Albert, The World’s Most Difficult Constitution to Amend?

• Oren Schweitzer, Most Americans Have Lost Faith in Our Political System. It’s Time to Change It

• Sean Illing, Is the United States in self-destruct mode?

• Seth Ackerman, Burn the Constitution

• Stephen Pimpare, The Right is Risen: It’s Time to Admit the US Constitution Has Failed

• Thomas Geoghegan, Abolish the Senate

• Thomas Geoghegan, The Infernal Senate

• Ziyad Motala, The US Constitution was not made to protect against Trump

Books

• Aziz Rana, The Constitutional Bind

• Daniel Lazare, The Frozen Republic

• Daniel Lazare, The Velvet Coup

• Eric Foner, The Second Founding

• Eric Foner, Reconstruction

• Erwin Chemerinsky, No Democracy Lasts Forever

• Fawn M. Brodie, Thaddeus Stevens: Scourge of the South

• Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787

• Gregory Claeys, Thomas Paine: Social and Political Thought

• Harvey Kaye, Thomas Paine: Promise of America

• James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom

• Jonathan Israel, The Expanding Blaze

• Michael Klarman, The Framers’ Coup

• Manisha Sinha, The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic

• Louis Michael Seidman, From Parchment to Dust: The Case for Constitutional Skepticism

• Raymond A. Smith, The American Anomaly

• Robert A. Dahl, How Democratic Is the American Constitution?

• Robert Ovetz, We the Elites

• Sanford Levinson, Our Undemocratic Constitution

• Sanford Levinson, Fault Lines in Our Constitution

• Seth Cotlar, Tom Paine’s America

• Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, Tyranny of the Minority

Interviews

• Aziz Rana with Cosmopod and Class

• Aziz Rana’s four-part 2025 series with The Dig

• Gil Schaeffer with Cosmopod

• Manisha Sinha with Class

• Robert Overtz with Cosmopod

• Lucas and Luke with Varn Vlog

• Luke with Socialist News and Views

• Luke with WPKN radio

Statements

• YDSA, “Winning the Battle for Democracy”

• Cleveland DSA, “Winning the Battle for Democracy”

• San Diego DSA, “For a Democratic Constitution”

Videos

• Al Jazeera, The U.S. Isn’t A Democracy

• Ian Forgie, A Socialist Critique of the US Constitution

• Luke Pickrell, The Left's Rediscovery of Democratic Republicanism