Tea Party will never understand the Constitution: What the right misses about its favorite document

Salon ^ | April 21, 2015 | Elias Isquith

[2ndDivisionVet]

GOP candidates constantly invoke the Constitution. A Yale Law professor reveals what they all fail to understand.

With the 2016 election cycle having kicked into first-gear already, any American who hasn’t inured themselves to the monotonous (and often ultimately meaningless) repetition of the word “Constitution” is advised to get to self-desensitizing — and quick.

Sens. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz have already made a fetishized version of the U.S.’s supreme governing document central to their campaign rhetoric; and even politicians less beloved by the supposedly Constitution-crazy Tea Party, like Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton, are likely to soon follow suit. That’s how American politics functions now, in the era of the NSA, Guantanamo Bay, lethal drone strikes and endless war.

But as that list of questionable policies suggests, there’s an unanswered question lurking behind so much of our happy talk about the Constitution — namely, do we even understand it? As dozens of polls and public surveys will attest, the answer is, not really. And that’s one of the reasons that Yale Law School professor Akhil Reed Amar has decided to write a multi-book series about the Constitution so many Americans claim to love, but so few seem to understand. “The Law of the Land: A Grand Tour of our Constitutional Republic,” released earlier this month, is that project’s latest addition.

Recently, Salon spoke over the phone with Amar about the Constitution, his books, and why he sees Abraham Lincoln as perhaps the United States’s real founding father....

[2ndDivisionVet]

Elias goes to a Muslim law professor to show how Ted Cruz and the TEA Party don't understand the Constitution? You can't make this stuff up!

[Eddie01]

Groupthink is ugly.
Mindguards are on full alert.

[amnestynone]

I suppose that they do understand it! Obviously they don’t care about it.

[demshateGod]

I’m not going to the link. What does it think we don’t understand?

[mountainlion]

The Right does not understand the left’s spin on the Constitution but the truth is simply written so that the less educated can even understand the original document.

[miss marmelstein]

What? Did I miss that it’s a living, breathing document? Or that the American Indian wrote it (as proposed by a friend who had just gotten a degree in American Studies).

[Fungi]

Of course Salon, that paragon of constitutional knowledge and example, is going to teach us. Nonsense!

[buwaya]

He doesn’t actually get to any errors in constitutional interpretation from the professor. Its just historical commentary. The editorializing before the interview is unsupported by anything discussed.

[kingattax]

when articles are from leftist trash like “salon”...no need to act surprised.

[tet68]

Dear Elias,
There are a lot of folks who while we esteem Lincoln
for being a good president consider him to have played
rather loose with the Consitituion and recognize that
a some of his actions may not have been good for the
present day.

Then again I suppose you hold Obama to be right up there
with him.
Note. Try a few other Constitutional scholars and see
if they agree with Mr. Akil Whosis.

[Uncle Miltie]

Libs take 4 paragraphs to say NOTHING about the constitution.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Lincoln is really, really good. Southerners BAD.

[Parmenio]

The professor asserts that Constitutional law has been primarily created by presidents and “executive action”. Most significantly by Abraham Lincoln. His arguments are incoherent gibberish.

[Conscience of a Conservative]

Elias goes to a Muslim law professor to show how Ted Cruz and the TEA Party don't understand the Constitution? You can't make this stuff up!

Muslim?

[RginTN]

After the second paragraph I stopped taking this op ed seriously. This guy is a troll.

[oldplayer]

Well that’s five minutes I’ll never get back. This article is typical Salon fare . . . you are better off reading in a saloon than reading an article in Salon.

Oldplayer

[2ndDivisionVet]

I suppose that Professor Akhil Reed Amar could be a Scandinavian Lutheran, but I rather doubt it.

[the OlLine Rebel]

“claim to love, but so few seem to understand.”

Indeed. Liberals especially.

“.. he sees Abraham Lincoln as perhaps the United States’s real founding father...”

Of course. Lincoln “loved blacks”, so of course he is the most important and real founder. Never mind he probably set us on track for the way things are today, such as ignoring the Constitution. So of course, he really is the founder, given that liberals prefer government overreaching its bounds.

[WayneS]

Lincoln thinks that the nation created the states, which, of course, Robert E. Lee … could never buy into. Robert E. Lee would say that the states created the Union; but the Midwest [perspective] would say … before Illinois was a state, it was a territory; the Union created these new states out of nothing. That’s a very Midwestern perspective on the Constitution.

This alleged "midwest perspective" on the Constitution completely ignores the Articles of Confederation, the document which the Constitution replaced. The 13 original colonies ALL considered themselves sovereign states prior to the Articles of Confederation. In fact, if they were NOT individual sovereign states, they would not have needed to form a confederation of states - they could simply have formed a nation from "whole cloth".

The argument that the nation created the States is not historically correct; it is not legally correct and it is not logically correct.

This leftist muslim and his sycophants at "Salon.com" know less about the U.S. Constitution than my cats know.