In this short essay I assess the meaning of Trump’s election for the future of our constitutional order. The efficacy and, perhaps, stability of that order are in question and we should try to understand why. In particular, I argue that we should consider the possibility that Trump’s success is the product of longstanding trends that show the Constitution to be more crisis-prone than many would like to admit. These crises are internal to the constitutional order, based in the reality that it has long placed political elites in the position of informally adapting an obdurate Constitution to the changing responsibilities placed on the national state.
Given
this perspective, I provide three takes on Trump and the future of the
constitutional order.
Part I argues that
Trump’s victory was enabled by the long-term decline in political trust. It is important to understand that no matter
whether President Trump succeeds or fails, the problems of trust and
dysfunctional government will remain front and central.
Part
II contends that the challenge Trump presents cannot be remedied by returning
to the verities of the Constitution because the Constitution is part of the
problem. I critique the view that the
Constitution’s checks and balances will be sufficient to steer the Trump
administration within safe boundaries.
Instead we should face the music and acknowledge that the dysfunctional
operation of the contemporary constitutional order made Trump’s rise possible
in the first place. The reality is that
our governing order, weakened by a systemic loss of trust, is increasingly
unable to reproduce those conditions that contribute to its maintenance and
success.