No democracy lasts forever : how the Constitution threatens the United States / Erwin Chemerinsky.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Chemerinsky, Erwin, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States. Constitution.

United States.

Democracy--United States.

Democracy.

Constitutional conventions--United States.

Constitutional conventions.

United States--Politics and government--21st century.

Physical Description:

xiv, 223 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York, N.Y. : Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W. W. Norton & Company, [2024]

Summary:

"No Democracy Lasts Forever argues that the Constitution has become a threat to American democracy and must be dramatically changed or replaced if secession is to be avoided. Deeply troubled by the Constitution's inherent flaws, Erwin Chemerinsky, the renowned dean of Berkeley law school, came to the sobering conclusion that our nearly 250-year-old founding document is responsible for the crisis now facing American democracy. Pointing out that just fifteen of the 11,848 amendments proposed since 1789 have passed, Chemerinsky contends that the very nature of our polarization results from the Constitution's "bad bones," which have created a government that no longer works or has the confidence of the public. Yet political armageddon can still be avoided, Chemerinsky writes, if a new constitutional convention is empowered to replace the Constitution of 1787, much as the Founding Fathers replaced the outdated Articles of Confederation. If this isn't possible, Americans must give serious thought to forms of secession--including a United States structured like the European Union--based on a recognition that what divides us as a country is, in fact, greater than what unites us." -- Goodreads.

Contents:

Part I. The crisis facing American democracy

Part II. How the Constitution became a threat to democracy

Part III. Can the United States be saved?

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781324091585

1324091584

OCLC:

1428770637