The Predicament of Governance Design

Having established in Chap. 9 that the Constitution of the US is pitifully obsolete, purposely undemocratic, and wholly unfit for a dream society, I turn in this chapter to a sampling of suggestions that have been made for amending or replacing the document. The results are pretty discouraging. Until very recently, the attitude of citizens and constitutional law experts alike was the same: uncritical, patriotic, blind worship of the glorious work of the divinely-guided founding fathers. Only within the last decade, and especially during and since the presidency of Donald Trump, has there been an outpouring of concern and criticism from both the left and the right. Most of the recommendations are very modest indeed—modifications that should have been made long, long ago. Even so, almost all critics conclude by noting that even their tepid reforms will never happen because the present system so fully supports the opponents of any significant change.