LaRue writes at Structure Matters. He is former deputy director of the Eisenhower Institute and of the American Society of International Law.
Raskin is a U.S. Representative for the state of Maryland.
In his interview with Fulcrum Contributor Rick LaRue, excerpted below, Representative Jamie Raskin (MD-08) reminds us of the need to look ahead while highlighting the Constitution's anchoring role in today's electoral drama. Constitution Day, September 17, kicked off Constitution Week.
On this Constitution Day, 2023, when we confront immediate threats to our democracy, why is it important to keep the Constitution on our radar screen?
The American people face continuous, vehement and sometimes violent efforts by a significant political faction to trample and bypass the Constitution. As Donald Trump has put it in his unceasing efforts to overthrow the 2020 presidential election, “A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”
The Constitution does not belong to any president or the Supreme Court but to the people, and we must save it from all authoritarianism set loose in the land. Eternal vigilance is still the price of liberty.
What do you envision as you contemplate the 250th anniversaries of the Declaration of Independence in 2026 and the Constitution in 2037?
The Declaration set forth the animating principles of equality, freedom and democratic self-government, ushering in an age of constitutional democracy and the sovereign rights of the people.
The 250th anniversary of the Constitution should be not only about defending our essential constitutional order, but also about amending the Constitution to keep democracy vibrant and growing in this century.
The real question for the big anniversary in 2026 is not about the past but about the future. What constitutional changes do we need to make to keep democracy growing and strong?
You have long opposed the Electoral College. How do you think we should abolish it?
The Electoral College is one of the obsolete anti-majoritarian filters still hanging on in our Constitution. It … has overthrown the people’s choice for president five times in our history, twice in this century alone, and today its odd nooks and crannies can actually get you killed.
It’s time to adopt the National Popular Vote initiative to move to a popular, ranked choice vote for president. In Maryland back in 2007, we passed the first law adopting the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. The compact is simple: it sets up a mechanism whereby states agree to allocate their electors to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote rather than their state’s popular vote. Once we see the new system working in practice, I feel certain we will amend the Constitution to adopt the system formally. Most constitutional amendments have come into existence this way—before the 19th Amendment was enacted in 1920, a majority of states had acted on their own to enfranchise women.
What revisions to the Constitution rise to the top of your need-to-be-changed list?
The Equal Rights Amendment, obviously. I also believe that we must get rid of unaccountable dark money in our politics and reverse the Supreme Court’s disastrous Citizens United decision. I have cosponsored legislation to establish the Democracy For All Amendment, which would cut off the pipeline between corporate and super-wealthy donor dollars and political power and governmental influence. It is time to formally elevate democracy over plutocracy in our Constitution, something hinted at in the 24th Amendment banning poll taxes in federal elections.
We also should build a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right of every citizen to vote. Right now, we do not have a universal, guaranteed right to vote—instead, we are working from a patchwork of ad hoc anti discrimination amendments to try and defend the foundation of our democracy.
[And] take the Second Amendment.… It does not give the people the insurrectionary right to overthrow the government if it turns tyrannical…. Far from making violent insurrection an individual or collective right, the entire architecture of our structural Constitution is designed to oppose and defeat violent insurrection….[continued].
How can we overcome partisan or special interests resisting such change?
As the philosopher John Dewey said, “the only solution to the ills of democracy is more democracy.” The problem that we face today is not democracy but the impediments to democracy. Our greatest challenge is thus to harness the remarkable power of American citizens, coming together in a nonpartisan spirit of solidarity and common sense, to overcome big corporate money and power. Polls show the vast majority of Americans favor a constitutional right to vote, direct election of the president, and the Equal Rights Amendment. They’re not partisan in nature.
The 250th anniversary of the Constitution may be 14 years away, but throughout our history we have gone decades without amendments. Can we celebrate this major anniversary of the document by repairing it?
I certainly hope so and will work to see that the Constitution continues to evolve to meet our circumstances. The vast majority of the Amendments we have added since the original ten in the Bill of Rights have been suffrage-expanding and democracy-strengthening amendments. Let’s keep the wheels of strong democracy turning.
Any last word about what else we can all do to make September 17th a more consequential day in our civic lives?
Read the Constitution and give a little speech about something you found there to some young people near you! Be sure to find the ban on presidents and other federal officials receiving presents, emoluments, offices and titles “of any kind whatever” from kings, princes and foreign states without the consent of Congress. This is what Donald Trump calls the “phony Emoluments Clause”!
The Constitution is your principal weapon of intellectual self-defense against the daily rampages of autocrats, kleptocrats, plutocrats and theocrats. Don’t leave home without it. Keep it close to your heart.
Happy Constitution Day.
To review the complete Q&A vist here.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.