No one can denounce the New York Yankee fan for boasting that her favorite ballclub has won more World Series championships than any other. At 27 titles, the Bronx Bombers claim more than twice their closest competitor.
No one can question admirers of the late, great Chick Corea, or the equally astonishing Alison Krauss, for their virtually unrivaled Grammy victories. At 27 gold statues, only Beyoncé and Quincy Jones have more in the popular categories.
No one can doubt the sincerity of the stargazer who honors the length of the moon’s orbit around the Earth. At roughly 27 days, the lunar cycle can be an emotional sedative or an emotional amphetamine.
But lest we think the number 27 has some magical quality, we should all holler at the agonizing rarity of amending the United States Constitution. After 238 years, we’ve altered the text only 27 times. That’s simply not enough.
It’s difficult to amend the Constitution. Really difficult. In fact, Donald Lutz, the late political scientist at the University of Houston, has conclusively shown that the United States Constitution is the most unamendable charter in the entire world. The eminent political historian, Jill Lepore, recently echoed Lutz’s findings.
James Madison wanted it that way. In Federalist 49, he wrote: frequent appeal to the people [for amendments] would carry an implication of some defect in the government and deprive the government of the veneration which time bestows on everything…”. Stability, he insisted, requires that the Constitution remain mostly untouched.
As a result, Article V—the amendment article—was inserted into the Constitution. Article V has two avenues for new amendments. First, and most commonly, the Constitution can be amended with two-thirds majorities in both Houses of Congress, followed by approval from three-quarters of the states. Secondly, two-thirds of the state legislatures can request that Congress call a constitutional convention. Whatever is produced by such a convention would still need endorsement by three-quarters of the states.
The question is: has the Madisonian method served us well? Increasingly, pundits, scholars, and commentators view Article V as a constitutional vice, a defect of the original design. Indeed, America’s inability to amend its governing charter has contributed to the feeling that the Constitution is increasingly outdated.
And that is why each generation, if given the chance, would dramatically alter the constitutional amendment process. All would lower the bar to make it simpler to align the Constitution with the ever-changing world.
The most interesting proposal to improve Article V comes from the “Silent Generation.” That senior generation favors a conventional first step: two-thirds majorities in both Houses of Congress can propose a constitutional amendment. But then it gets interesting. The “Silent Generation” calls for a “public deliberation period” of at least one full year to consider the implications of the constitutional reform. Citizens would then vote in a national referendum. A super majority of two-thirds support would be required for any proposed amendment that alters the Bill of Rights or other fundamental freedoms. A simple majority is required for any suggested change to the government’s structure.
The emphasis on deliberative democracy carries over to the Baby Boomers. Any proposed constitutional amendment, insists Boomers, must be vetted through expansive public hearings, expert analysis, and a “national dialogue” on the generational and political implications of the change. Input must come from all segments of the citizenry.
The second stage of the Baby Boomer proposal would focus on states. Here, state ratifying conventions would examine the floated amendment. Three-quarters of the states must approve of the change, a high threshold meant to ensure widespread consensus. Similarly, a regional balance among large and small states, urban and rural populations, and economically affluent and less prosperous states is necessary to ensure a high degree of consensus. The final step toward ratification would be a simple majority vote in a national referendum.
Unsurprisingly, younger generations favor more populist and less governmental approaches to constitutional reform. Both Gen X and Gen Z prefer grassroots amendments. Gen Xers embrace the “citizen-initiated amendment,” whereby a petition signed by 2% of the voting population—about 3.5 million eligible voters—can trigger a constitutional amendment. Gen Zers are comfortable with 1%.
A key feature of the Gen Z amendment process is the involvement of a “Youth Council,” a group of 16-to 25-year-olds who are empowered to propose and evaluate potential constitutional amendments. Both generational constitutions then require super-majorities to endorse the proposed change.
Across all these constitutions, one thing is clear: every generation wants the amendment process to be more democratic, more accountable to the populace. We need to lower the threshold for constitutional revision. The double supermajority—a vote of two-thirds of both houses of Congress, followed by certification by three-quarters of the states—is frankly too formidable. It is no wonder that more than ten thousand amendments have been proposed, but only 27—and none since 1992 (a holdover from Madison's original 1789 list, no less)—have been ratified. It is time to improve the way we improve our Constitution.
The New Testament of the Bible contains 27 books. The human hand contains 27 bones. Most alphabets, including the Greek alphabet, contain 27 letters. The number 27 is a perfect cube.
Interesting facts, all. And not disconcerting. What is disconcerting is that we are celebrating the 238th anniversary of the “miracle in Philadelphia”—September 17, 2025—and we have only attended to 27 of the text’s many flaws. The number 27 symbolizes the nation’s struggle to update its fundamental law, a struggle that has kept us from achieving “a more perfect union.” That struggle must end.
Beau Breslin is the Joseph C. Palamountain Jr. Chair in Government at Skidmore College.
Prairie Gunnels just successfully and with honors completed her first year at Skidmore.
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.