Radical Reconstruction Society
Our current constitution is failing us, just as the original constitution failed antebellum America. It’s time we start looking toward a Post Trump Reconstruction.
Opinion by Founding Editor, Digital Media, Daniel
A New Radical Reconstruction
The common story of this country’s origin is one of shared ideals that, when first publicly declared, sent shockwaves throughout the world. Those ‘inalienable’ rights of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, as the story goes, were revolutionary. Then four score and seven years after those ideals sent shockwaves across the world, our nation was experiencing a new birth of freedom. For the people. By the people. Behind lead ball, bayonet, cannon fire, and new constitutional amendments, the Founder’s constitution was changed to one that shined a light toward justice and equality.
The common story of our country tells us of a steady march towards progress. It ignores historic moments of failure: the Articles of Confederation; the Founders’ Constitution breaking, which lead to the Civil War; and the continued reverberating failures of white apathy during the Reconstruction era and the constitution born from it.
As they say, the past doesn’t repeat, but it echoes. In our modern era, we have a congress that refuses to pass legislation that would help its constituents or even do the bare minimum of funding the government itself. A legislature unable to meet the needs of its people which then pushes these disputes to the courts. In the courts, we have seen the roll back of voting protections, reproductive rights and bodily autonomy, allowing unlimited amounts of cash to flow into our elections, and new anti-democratic presidential immunities. These have allowed an authoritarian executive to take hold. Now, we watch as masked men abduct people off the streets in front of their children or use drones to bomb boats in international waters, both without the due process guaranteed by the Reconstruction amendments. We watch as our government slashes programs that serve our most vulnerable while passing large tax cuts to the wealthy. We watch as the President, Congress, and the Courts take authoritarian sledgehammers to the pillars of our democracy with impunity. We see an oligarchy in full bloom.
Now, in this political moment, the fabric of our country has again began to fray. Democrat-run states are organizing their own version of the CDC to give guidelines to their populations to counter the destruction of health and safety by the Federal Secretary of Health. These same states have threatened to withhold federal tax dollars in protest of the federal government’s illegal practices and to continue the services the Federal Government want to cut. These actions have been referred to as a “soft secession,” and we’re likely to see more of these actions as the sledgehammer continues to strike.
The United States can and will continue beyond this moment. We the People endure. We do not and will not consent to the government this current Administration envisions. We still believe in our constitution, but because of the damage being done, we need to start pushing the next Reconstruction for the Post-Trump world. Part of that, just like the first Reconstruction, is needing new constitutional amendments. The process to amend the Constitution is an onerous one, needing super majorities of federal legislators and states to ratify it. This is why we need to build a mass movement to start demanding now, as the 2026 midterms start to take shape, that our candidates support these changes. It is not just our senators or federal congressional candidates that we need on board. We need to petition and lobby our state legislators if we are to ratify even one amendment.
To achieve our main objective to create a new Reconstruction we need to return amending the Constitution to a mainstream position. We must re-embrace and preach living constitutionalism. Living constitutionalism is the belief that the words and clauses of the Constitution are like an organism, adapting to the times of the current society. For most of our history, constitutional scholars, politicians, and judges had held this belief. Then, about forty years ago, led by the Federalist Society and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, originalism became the more dominant brand of constitutional interpretation. Originalism believes that we should be guided only by the words of the Constitution and context in which the framers wrote them. Not only is it absurd that only originalist judges are uniquely able to divine the true meaning of men who have been dead for centuries, but it is incredibly harmful to the progress of our country. It binds us to a document cobbled together in the 1787, by endless compromises with men who held humans in bondage. It also ignores the revolution Abraham Lincoln, Fredrick Douglass, Charles Sumner, Harriet Tubman, Thaddeus Stevens, and thousands of Americans, Black and white, achieved in the 1863. It cannot continue to be the dominant form of constitutional interpretation if we are to move forward.
In the six years between the adoption of the Articles of Confederation and the ratification of our current Constitution, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and the other leaders of the time became acutely aware of the weaknesses within the Articles. Raising a national army, interstate commerce, and collecting taxes were near impossible with each state acting as independent nations and in competition with each other. Additionally, the amendment process required unanimous approval. Despite the daunting task in front of them, delegates from twelve of the thirteen states (Rhode Island didn’t send anyone) met in Philadelphia in the heat of the 1787 Summer with the purpose of amending the Articles of Confederation to address these issues. Instead, they exited the convention hall with an entirely new constitution to be ratified. To this day, it remains the first and only time a constitutional convention was called by the states.
In Article V, of this new constitution, the framers provide us with two new ways in which this Constitution can be amended. It states:
“The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress.”
This is an incredibly difficult task. Option one requires that two thirds of Congress propose an Amendment. Option two requires that two thirds of the states call a convention to propose amendments. Either way, after the amendment has been successfully proposed, 75% of the States have to approve the amendment by a vote of their State Legislature or at the convention they called. In the nearly two hundred and fifty year history of our Constitution,11,985 amendments have been proposed. Only 27 have been ever been ratified.
Given this incredibly difficult task of passing and ratifying amendments it is fair to ask, “why not just pass legislation to meet these needs?” The simple answer is that legislation can be overturned by a future congress, a new President can choose not to enforce it via executive order, or it can be ruled unconstitutional by the courts. We’ve seen it countless times. We’re currently witnessing the Roberts Court unraveling the remaining pieces of the Voting Rights Act. If we are going to create lasting reforms, they must be codified into the Constitution. For example, lasting reforms could include abolishing the Electoral College or creating term limits for Supreme Court Justices. Both of these systems are explicitly outlined in the Constitution. Passing legislation that executed either of these actions would be contradictory to the language of the Constitution. Thus, passing legislation would not be possible, nor would it meaningfully fix the practical issues these reforms aim to cure. If we want to implement these reforms, we would need to change the structures as outlined in the Constitution. In short: there is no way to implement these changes legislatively; a constitutional amendment is required.
Article II Section 1 of the Constitution plainly lays out the process for electing the President, implementing the Electoral College: states appoint electors equal to the value of representatives and senators combined, and those electors then cast ballots for the President and Vice President. While eliminating the Electoral College goes against the text of the Constitution, it is important to remember that the electoral process outlined here has been amended before. In the early days of our Republic, the Vice President was the candidate who received the second most votes for President. The election of 1800 resulted in an electoral vote tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr because electors did not specifying which candidate they were voting for which office. As a result, Congress and the states ratified the 12th Amendment which required electors to cast a vote for each the President and the Vice President. This also had the less explicit intention of helping the nascent political parties at the time elect their candidates into these offices. It would not be a novel interest to amend Article II again as the Country has grown over time.
Term limits for Supreme Court Justices also goes against the specific language in our Constitution. Article III, which establishes the court systems, states that ‘Judges shall hold the offices during good behavior.’ These terms, limited only on good behavior, are for life, unless impeached. There is precedent for judicial impeachment in our nation’s history, but the standard requires misconduct and/or crimes. Misconduct is a very vague standard as Supreme Court Justices are not held to any standards of professional ethics. Once confirmed as a Justice, these individuals are able to weave their way through cases, virtually without consequence for any actions while also deciding the fate of the nation. Term limits would ensure that the Judicial Branch is effective, loyal to the country, and not above the law themselves. Amending Article III is possible and popular.
July 4th, 2026, will be the 250th anniversary of our founders declaring their independence from a despotic king an ocean away. I can think of no better way to honor our revolutionary leaders than by continuing to push this country towards a more perfect union. One that once again is striving for Life, Liberty, the Pursuit of Happiness, and Justice for all. We cannot continue to put bandaids on problems hoping tomorrow brings a better solution. We have the tools today that can rebuild the United States, not just for us now, but for future generations.
Which brings us to our main goal: amending the framework of our Constitution for all people to enjoy their unalienable rights. And when the next crisis comes to our nation, we have provided firm ground on which the leaders of tomorrow can stand and push forward.
We need a voting rights amendment. It must be one that eliminates the endless flow of money into our elections, eliminates partisan gerrymandering by implementing a proportional representation system for seats in the House of Representatives, enshrines provisions of the voting rights act of 1965 and its enforcement mechanisms into the Constitution, and eliminates the electoral college for presidential elections by making the President and Vice President elected by popular vote.
The next amendment will establish a twenty year term limit on Supreme Court justices. This would ensure proper turnover. The values of the current generation must be reflected in the composition of the Justices.
Our third proposed amendment is one for equal rights. No longer should any person rely on legislation or court rulings for rights. These mustn’t be a zero-sum game. We will push for an amendment that enshrines a person’s bodily autonomy, right to marriage, and reproductive rights into our constitution.
These aren’t being offered as the only solutions. Society and our government are complex and always in motion. We are offering long term, structural improvements as many other experts and organizers push for current fixes to stop the authoritarian creep of our national government. All of these should be taken in tandem and in light of each other. We cannot allow ourselves to believe that once the current occupant of the White House leaves, our problems will be solved. That is a fallacy. He is just a symptom of greater institutional brokenness that these solutions will help repair.
This work, just like any movement building, is going to be difficult and is going to take time. If we want to repair the institutional damage caused by this administration, if we want to build safeguards against this happening again to our nation, if we want to move our republic closer to the multiracial democracy the first Reconstruction aimed us towards, we must come together to do difficult things. This country is worth it, because we are worth it.
