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As the late Forrest McDonald pointed out, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention could have been replaced a half dozen times without exhausting the pool of men with the necessary background and dedication. Significantly, the delegates wanted to secure lasting renown by founding a stable, effective form of government that would vindicate the idea of self-government.

The success of the Constitution made it a primary basis for the legitimacy of the federal government and the country's identity. The United States is thus said to have become the first creedal nation, meaning that the country is founded on a set of abstract propositions about human nature and self-government that are reduced to practice in the Constitution.

Yet what happens when the elite abandons faith in the national creed and its attendant ideas? They unsettle the country's regard for that elite, which this year triggered the tsunami of populist discontent that put Donald Trump in the White House. For those who categorically disdain populism in any form as unAmerican, I offer the first three words of the Constitution: "We the People."