Comments on: The Constitution and American Political Debate

By: Robert Wilson

Robert Wilson — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 09:10:37 +0000

thanks for the post

By: Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

Jeffrey C. Goldfarb — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 01:12:15 +0000

Alex, I appreciate your understanding of the challenge of the Tea Party, something I hope we will discuss in our class further, especially as it relates to Tocqueville’s concerns about “the tyranny of the majority.” Yet, it isn’t on the Tea Party where I think that the students in the class and I part. The issue is not on the challenge between the Tea Party and the major parties. Rather, we differ in that I think the Republicans and the Democrats offer clearly different significant alternatives for the American public, two competing big visions of how to reach the common good, and many in the class, including you, don’t agree. You believe that the petty and cynical noise is essentially all there is. Perhaps I am wrong in my understanding of your position. Yet,thinking about your comment, I realize more clearly that I see in the Tea Party clear positions on the big political economic and constitutional issues that are actually fundamental Republican positions – limited government, low taxes. They are not only crazies, not only, or even primarily, defined by their fear of the more diverse country American is becoming. They are, in fact, principled Reagan Republicans. I hope to explore this more tomorrow in my DC post on Obama’s speech in Madison this evening.

By: Alex

Alex — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 16:17:46 +0000

I don’t believe it is that we (the class) do not appreciate what is at stake in this big political debate- I too agree that the fundamental differences between the Tea Party and more conventional constitutional readings are profound, and indeed, could create a dangerously radical reinterpretation of constitutional provisions. I believe our perspective, characterized in your post as “[that] the great days of American politics are over” is a reflection of our own personal experience of the American politics of the last two decades. Ever since I became aware of politics, perhaps during Clinton’s second term, the political debate has certainly been “petty and cynical,” with very little profound debate over the fundamentals of what government should, and is allowed to do, under constitutional provisions.

I have no doubt that, if the Tea Party’s radicals ever comprised the majority of legislators, a dangerous change of constitutional powers would result. However, I have faith in the American system in Congress- that the institution will inevitably prevail, trending towards leniency and stagnation. The Tea Party will eventually have no more power and influence than the [Pat] Buchannanites of the early ’90s. . .