Our Constitution Works?
A new piece in Foreign Policy
Over at Foreign Policy, I write about the Trump verdict:
The current crisis of U.S. democracy, then, is a domestic struggle with global consequences. Alas, Trump is far from the only actor undermining U.S. democracy and liberal institutions. The disregard for judicial norms demonstrated by many members of the federal judiciary, including Supreme Court justices but lower court jurists as well, constitutes one strand of the threat. Many state governments have similarly adopted measures to restrict voting and other practices. Combined, these trends make explicit partisan gerrymandering more feasible than ever, compounding racial disparities in political power and weakening the accountability via the possibility of losing elections that ultimately motivates democratically elected politicians.
These conditions call for a more aggressive strategy. To make the world safe for democracy, pro-democracy officials must embrace a broader set of tactics to protect U.S. values at home. These include prioritizing the quality and integrity of the judiciary above secondary norms, such as the number of Supreme Court seats, but also employing tools from prosecutions to civil suits and beyond to investigate, publicize, and punish those who restrict or resist democratic processes and civil rights.