With Robert Mueller’s report now released to Congress, cries about justice versus betrayal are echoing everywhere. President Trump and his supporters boast of the report’s “total exoneration” from Russian collusion. Democrats emphasize still lurking possibilities of the president’s obstruction of justice. La lutte continue.
But let’s widen the aperture. Waging ceaseless trench warfare about Mueller’s report, and brandishing narratives about Trump the Savior versus Trump the Demon can obscure bigger questions. Our democracy is not one president. It’s a broad system of interconnected, tangible and intangible pieces. So how safe and how healthy is that system, looking ahead? How worried or optimistic should we be about our democracy’s future?
Summoning The Lamplight of History
For that, Andrew Porwancher, associate professor at the University of Oklahoma’s Institute for the American Constitutional Heritage provided some helpful insights in a recent interview. Porwancher is one of the star lecturers of The One Day University which showcases highly-rated college professors to lay audiences in day-long events across 61 North American cities. Our conversation–about the successes and travails of our constitution’s history—produced some encouraging answers to the bigger-than-Mueller questions. Summary take: American democracy is not about to die–but if it’s going to keep evolving and adapting, we are all going to have to step up our game as citizens.
Five themes from our discussion tell the tale:
1.Two hundred plus years of debate and conflict in American democracy has delivered plenty of progress.
“Our divisions today are not exceptional,” Porwancher began optimistically. “Our system of governance has been extraordinarily resilient through history. We endured a protracted war of independence against a global superpower. We survived a civil war where 600,000 Americans died, and then later two world wars. And we’ve wrestled with incredible internal dissent all the while, tolerating it and then adapting. Meanwhile we’ve steadily expanded the country’s freedoms to those previously disenfranchised—slaves, women, gay Americans, etc. If you look at the arc of our history—and our relative success (not total—we don’t always get it right, especially as a big and complex society)—there’s every reason to be hopeful. But we also can’t let ourselves become complacent. Some things do need fixing now.”
2. History won’t “settle our arguments once and for all” but it should help us appreciate our heritage of political debate and compromise.
Porwancher attacked the myth that continued search for the Founding Fathers’ original intent is a solution to end today’s acrimony. “The Framers shared many basic principles which still inform today’s democracy—the central importance of liberty, and a realistic view that power corrupts and must therefore be moderated by a system of checks and balances. But the Founders often disagreed, even changing their own minds sometimes, for example, about how much power the central government should have (e.g. Jefferson’s early opposition to a powerful central bank but later embrace of Federal prerogative to seize the opportunity of the Louisiana Purchase); or the actual role of religion in civic life (separation of church and state wasn’t as hard-edged in the 18th century as we see it today).”
Porwancher also noted that the drafters of the Constitution were sometimes either accidentally ambiguous or intentionally sparse with their language, to encourage context-sensitive interpretation in the future. “The best example is probably the ‘necessary and proper’ clause, which empowers Congress to pass legislation necessary and proper for fulfillment of its enumerated powers, endowing the federal government with a measure of latitude to meet unanticipated exigencies.”
Enduring Fault Lines
“Our Constitution emerged out of fundamental fault lines which the Framers never fully resolved—the issue of slavery a chief example—but also others which still vex us today: agrarian and rural interests versus urban and mercantile; northern versus southern states. And because the Founders so prioritized individual freedom, it was inevitable that protecting it encouraged a culture of political dissent: As Madison famously wrote ‘liberty is to faction what air is to fire.’ Politics in his day were every bit as divisive as ours, which is why the Founders worked hard to design safeguards and checks and balances, so that disagreements wouldn’t erupt into war, but instead be channeled into courts, public hearings, and legislative solutions.”
Porwancher went on to emphasize how the Constitution was itself built on compromise, affirming an approach to cut through democratic disagreements and harsh ideologies. “For example, in one early debate about slavery, Virginia sided with abolitionists to oppose more importation of slaves—not because they suddenly loathed human bondage, but because at the time they had too many slaves and wanted to increase their value by reducing supply.”
3. To continue our progress, today’s democracy now requires urgent changes
Porwancher counterpointed his optimism by acknowledging serious reform is now required to continue positive evolution. Beyond a few familiar operational changes (tightening up voting processes; rationalizing gerrymandering), he highlighted one critical institutional shift:“Congress needs to reassert itself. James Madison was explicit in the Federalist Papers that Congress should be the most powerful branch of government. The relative power of the legislature vs the executive has indeed waxed and waned over time—consider Congressional strength under Andrew Johnson, through the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century, and during Watergate against Nixon. It’s time to rebalance legislative authority against today’s executive power.”
Invoking Alexander Hamilton, Porwancher underscored what is most paramount to the survival of democracy: “A robust Department of Justice must ensure the rule of law.” But as the historian further reflected, it’s also time for the rule of law to be extended to some currently soft democratic norms. “Things we used to take for granted—e.g. Presidential candidates releasing tax returns, putting personal assets in a blind trust—now need more statutory force. And Congress must offer greater legal specificity about the scope of the emoluments clause. Also, the barriers between leaders and administrative justice need rethinking—ensuring no public servant is allowed to be ‘above the law’, and also preventing them from using the law as a political weapon against opponents.”
Rebuilding Civic Culture
4. No less important than institutional change is rebuilding civic culture.
“You can’t sustain democracy by imposing institutions on a society not committed to democratic values. A constitution succeeds only if it channels a democratic culture.”
“How we debate and how we talk about our opponents matter. Our coarsening public discourse ought to be a great concern. The First Amendment says we have to tolerate free speech but not necessarily promote its harshest forms. If personal attacks, and all the trolling and anonymous vitriol of social media lessen our commitment to follow democratic norms, we can’t operate the institutions on which the constitution depends.”
“But at the same time, today’s situation is fostering demand for leaders who can speak for all of us. We don’t have to accept the extreme differences between us that the media projects in its ‘Blue State vs Red State’ narratives. Excesses of character and style among our presidents tend to regress to the mean—Carter’s honesty after Nixon, Bush the family man after Clinton, Trump the anti-Obama. I think our nation is now ready for a unifier. We can self-correct again.”
5. That said, don’t look to any single leader to fix our current problems.
Porwancher finished with a last historical reflection: “The Founders lived in their own toxic political times, and knew that when reasoned debate ends violence begins. It’s still true today. We have to believe that renewing our institutions, culture and discourse is what will sustain our democracy. If we do the hard work of self-governance—engaging, listening and respecting our opponents, problem-solving and compromising as needed—a better future awaits us.”
So if Robert Mueller isn’t going to save our democracy, who will do the job? The answer lies in the first three words of our Constitution.
Originally published on Forbes.com