The Cycle of Constitutional Rot and Renewal

For the past thirty years the United States has been suffering from increasing constitutional rot. Constitutional rot is the decay of the features of a constitutional system that maintain it both as a democracy—responsive to popular will, and as a republic—devoted to the public good. The Constitution’s framers believed that all republics would eventually decay, so they designed the constitutional system so that things would bottom out before the country turned to mob rule, oligarchy, or dictatorship. They sought to buy time for democracy so that the inevitable periods of constitutional rot would be followed by periods of constitutional renewal. Constitutional rot often produces demagogues. Donald Trump is a demagogue. His rise to power was made possible because constitutional rot has been growing for a long time and is now very advanced. The good news is that political changes offer possibilities for renewal.