The U.S. Constitution is still often spoken of largely in reverential tones, be they genuine or fake. In fact, it has been shrouded in clouds of glory for so long, many progressives and leftists who deeply dislike its checks on power find it politically prudent not to advertise their innermost beliefs.
Paying only lip-service to the Constitution has a long history that can be only hinted at here. The purpose is to demonstrate first that a desire fundamentally to reframe the Constitution has been at the very core of modern American liberalism, and second, that the current liberal reactions to President Trump’s allegedly lawless presidency show not devotion to principle but blatant political opportunism.
Liberals have for many decades tried to replace the Constitution’s ideas of limited federal and presidential power, checks and balances, and federalism with majoritarian democracy, expanded and centralized government, and strong presidential leadership. Old-fashioned American constitutionalists resisted Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal as violating the Constitution, but Roosevelt became for American liberals the model president. Lionizing him, they drew up plans for further expansion of federal power.
Note that John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier and Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty and Great Society were understood to be presidential, not congressional, initiatives. The old idea that Congress was to be the first branch of government and the presidency largely an instrument for implementing the laws was honored mostly in the breach. Congress abdicated to the executive more and more of its role, such as its exclusive power under the Constitution to take the country to war.
After a while, it finally dawned on many liberals that Big Government — and especially the presidency — might become instruments for policies that they disliked.
Growing opposition to the conflict in Vietnam and the “imperial presidency” was a factor. Republicans resisted Big Government, and Richard Nixon advocated a “New Federalism,” but the old liberal fondness for expanded government and a strong presidency soon reasserted themselves. The Constitution was routinely skirted, but elected officials and other office holders continued to express admiration for and swear allegiance to it.
Such a fondness for a strong presidency has been indistinguishable from their stated desire to have an America with more equality, democracy and welfare benefits. Barack Obama did not speak of abolishing the Constitution, but people on the inside knew what he meant by “change.” That “woke” soon became part of Democratic Party’s ideology just brought the hostility to traditional America into the open.
One can study the liberal wish to get rid of the Framer’s Constitution in a very prominent scholar, James MacGregor Burns, who in the middle of the 20th century embodied and helped inspire the push to transform American politics. He was a celebrated professor of political science at Williams College and became president of the American Political Science Association, a bastion of liberal opinion. Burns spoke for countless academics, politicians and journalists, saying openly what many of them hesitated to admit to publicly.
Burns idolized FDR, and he sharply criticized the U.S. Constitution, whose “Madisonian” checks and balances blocked the progressive policies that he believed the American people wanted. A famous book of his was called “The Deadlock of Democracy” (1962), in which he expressed his deep frustration with the restrictions and representative structures that the Constitution placed in the way of realizing the will of the American people. By the will of the people, of course, Burns meant the numerical majority of what he wanted to be an undifferentiated national electorate, not a decentralized and subdivided people. He lauded Thomas Jefferson who, in sharp contrast to the Framers, demanded “absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority.”
This is how Burns summed up his rejection of the Framers’ notion of popular rule: “The people, yes—but only in their separated, federalized, localized capacities. Popular government yes—but not really popular rule by hungry majorities.”
Among the sweeping reforms that Burns advocated was — surprise — abolishing the Electoral College. He wanted to turn presidential elections into national plebiscites. Procedures that discouraged voting should be eliminated; the parties should be centralized and should, under presidential leadership, take control of the Congress.
Crucial to Burns’s plans for transforming America was presidential leadership that bore little resemblance to what the Framers intended. He wrote: “The great political leader is not content to whittle down his goals to what he thinks he can achieve through the existing structure of political forces” — he must break through archaic governmental routines by “the application of overwhelming external force.”
The good president, Burns continues, has to “ignore the absurd [constitutional] ‘rule’ … that the president does not interfere in the legislative department.” He must do so openly and generally be willing to cut through the cumbersome separation-of-powers apparatus to get things done.
A dislike for the constitutional republicanism of the Framers has been integral to modern American liberalism. Liberals have long wanted an imperial presidency and a corresponding centralization and expansion of government.
That today they are indignant about what they allege to be President Trump’s arbitrary, extra-unconstitutional use of power shows rank opportunism and hypocrisy. One does not have to agree with their characterization of Trump’s conduct to conclude that what they care the most about is not principle but getting their way.
Claes Ryn is emeritus professor of politics at the Catholic University of America. He has taught also at Georgetown University and the University of Virginia. The latest of his many books is “The Failure of American Conservatism and the Road Not Taken.”
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Yahoo News – Latest News & Headlines
Read the full article .
