We can really “rizz” up our institutions now, as the kids say

They invented presidentialism by accident, were basically forced to invent federalism, didn't realize they were creating a system necessitating something like judicial review, their version of the electoral college failed the second time it handled a contested election I mean, the list goes on

I think the framers were less surprised by judicial review emerging than we back-fill from our modern lens onto the original lens, but part of that is that what people now call is originalism is, well, a fairly modern judicial invention. But judicial review predates the revolution

Judicial review covers quite a few practices, and these days gets carelessly assimilated to judicial supremacy. The kind we have now isn't what anyone had in mind back then, and couldn't have, since you needed a tradition of written constitutionalism which Britain famously lacks

These were mostly smart guys, but they were stumbling around in the dark

It really was constitutional democracy version 1.0 and they honestly thought we would freaking fix it as we discovered problems

We did fix things until the things that needed fixing were less in the trim and more in the foundation

Wasn't it Jefferson who anticipated we should be on our 4th or 5th constitution by now at a minimum?

Thing is, we *are* on our 4th or 5th constitution if you understand constitutions correctly, as the totality of major rules structuring politics: bsky.app/profile/kjep...

Yeah, @hurricanexyz.bsky.social puts it in terms of we are in the 4th Republic I think rather than 4th constitution but he might correct me here

I'm unusual in that I think the current number is exactly two

Causing fights in the political science and law departments by saying the US Constitution is functionally amended often and irregularly because of Article V making it impossible to be actually amended regularly and infrequently

I finally have a view on this but find arguing about it sort of pointless. The law/politics divide is intractable, like conceptually, so why even bother

I mean, in the end it's just the frame that you use to discuss it. Nobody likes to confront it, but it's just norms all the way down, and if they are not reinforced by consistent application and deterrence they collapse, same as any other

We don't talk about it this way enough, but the Civil War meant the Constitution failed, full stop. Preventing civil war is the most basic task of any political arrangement, and it didn't prevent it.

I'm not sure if that's more constitutional failure or flat societal "we want evil shit" failure, because no constitution can stop a mass social movement that simply denied human rights exist and no Republic can tolerate that movement on a large scale.

"We become all one thing or all the other" basically

Trump's only a thing in our politics because of the Electoral College, never forget that

Pre-2016 I would've agreed with you. But now I'm not so sure. Elon's quarter billion $$$$ might have financed some pretty shady shenanigans. I still can't believe Harris lost every freakin' swing state.....

Which should have died when the 14th Amendment was ratified but that's just my 2 cents

Yep, it is a large defect to patch. Need to replace it with ranked choice, IMHO.

...when I explained to my wife what Marbury v Madison did, she asked: why did they have to figure that out though, it seems like a predictable problem that could have been covered in the original document

This is basically it, and it is worth appreciating how much of a quantum leap they still made. The Madisonian frame of analysis is still basically correct, it asks the right questions, they just couldn't have known then all the answers we now do.

The thing I've been thinking about lately is the way that parliamentarism & multi-party politics concentrate power in legislatures, but then fracture it in ways structurally checked by mass electorates. Vastly superior to unreliable branch-based checks & balances which are subverted by parties

Yeah. I wouldn't go full Westminster as my ideal preference, but it is better about that.

Westminster ain't multiparty!

Well, it is relative to our system, it's just a single party usually wins a majority of seats. But they have more than two winning seats and substantial electoral competition beyond just Conservative/Labour. But I meant more on the legislative/executive structural side, not electoral system.

We'd still say New Zealand operates on a Westminster system even though they made it proportional representation and ditched FPTP. I think that's kind of orthogonal to it. Consequential, but not part of what makes a system "Westminster" as opposed to necessarily identical to what the UK still does.

Exactly. And Australia has a Westminster system even though it has had preferential voting and upper house STV for a longer time than the nz shift to MMP.

@ctxplz.bsky.social

You're equating parliamentarism with Westminster and they're not the same. And Australia isn't even parliamentary, but rather semi-parliamentary because its bicameralism isn't merely symbolic as in the UK

That's not my understanding of the standard terminology. Westminster is definitionally two party, even if the UK has its minor parties

That's not how I've generally heard it used. I mean, there's no precise checklist, but at a glance wikipedia says FPTP is "traditional" and common but some use PR. It's not that they've completely abandoned having something still within the broad, slightly amorphous category of "Westminster system."

Cooperative vs competitive veto points is the comparative poli sci version of what you’re saying and: I agree!

Without a robust understanding of mature mass parties, that whole paradigm of control & dividing power was unavailable