Suz-an, and Michael: Your posts are full of excellent points nicely stated. I agree with you on almost everything. I agree we shouldn’t be run by our fears but that is not my state of mind in posing my one objection. It’s an attractive idea to rewrite the Constitution, agreed, and we are in the middle of a major realignment, agreed. But we need to be deliberative and strategic in the major moves we make, evaluating all current evidence to weigh how likely each move is to have the effect we’re aiming for, versus backfiring. To evaluate when would be a propitious moment to take a huge transformative step like holding a Constitututional Convention, we would have to assume not only that the white nationalist religio-fascist movement in this country would come with their own agenda, but in fact, their strategic thinkers probably have a version of a new Constitution all ready to propose, that they’ve been developing for the past 30 years, spearheaded by people like Leonard Leo. And they have been manipulating the beliefs and opinions of a large segment of American voters for 30 years, to be in line with their aims. We can abhor their goals, but we have to acknowledge that they have been very effective at playing the long game. Our political situation at the moment is emblematic of the problems we must contend with. Yes, we have a Democratic president and narrowly, a Democratically controlled Senate. But the House is narrowly controlled by a bunch of far right extremists. Donald Trump, in spite of his immense baggage and obvious massive flaws as a human being and huge mistakes during his first term, is still polling in the lead to be the Republican candidate in 2024. And we Democrats and progressives are not nearly as good as the Rs in uniting behind a single vision. We have not prepared the ground nearly well enough (yet), neither in voter knowledge and opinions, nor in strategic thinking and planning, nor in creating if not total unity, at least coalescence around one set of ideas and goals. In my humble opinion, we are a long way from the sort of political moment in which opening a Constitutional Convention would result in us achieving a next-gen Democratic/progressive document. Imho, it would be much more likely to yield a new document much more in line with a white nationalist religio-fascist vision than ours.
Suz-an, and Michael: Your posts are full of excellent points nicely stated. I agree with you on almost everything. I agree we shouldn’t be run by our fears but that is not my state of mind in posing my one objection. It’s an attractive idea to rewrite the Constitution, agreed, and we are in the middle of a major realignment, agreed. But we need to be deliberative and strategic in the major moves we make, evaluating all current evidence to weigh how likely each move is to have the effect we’re aiming for, versus backfiring. To evaluate when would be a propitious moment to take a huge transformative step like holding a Constitututional Convention, we would have to assume not only that the white nationalist religio-fascist movement in this country would come with their own agenda, but in fact, their strategic thinkers probably have a version of a new Constitution all ready to propose, that they’ve been developing for the past 30 years, spearheaded by people like Leonard Leo. And they have been manipulating the beliefs and opinions of a large segment of American voters for 30 years, to be in line with their aims. We can abhor their goals, but we have to acknowledge that they have been very effective at playing the long game. Our political situation at the moment is emblematic of the problems we must contend with. Yes, we have a Democratic president and narrowly, a Democratically controlled Senate. But the House is narrowly controlled by a bunch of far right extremists. Donald Trump, in spite of his immense baggage and obvious massive flaws as a human being and huge mistakes during his first term, is still polling in the lead to be the Republican candidate in 2024. And we Democrats and progressives are not nearly as good as the Rs in uniting behind a single vision. We have not prepared the ground nearly well enough (yet), neither in voter knowledge and opinions, nor in strategic thinking and planning, nor in creating if not total unity, at least coalescence around one set of ideas and goals. In my humble opinion, we are a long way from the sort of political moment in which opening a Constitutional Convention would result in us achieving a next-gen Democratic/progressive document. Imho, it would be much more likely to yield a new document much more in line with a white nationalist religio-fascist vision than ours.