A powerful argument by Aziz Rana for a view that seems largely, although not entirely, persuasive to me. I share the basic premise that it’s wrong and dangerous to overly laud the Founders, a point I made when commenting on Robert Kagan’s recent essay. But, as I also remarked, there’s much to Madisonian constitutional theory that we should retain, even as we endeavor to fix the serious flaws in the instrument that Madison and his fellow Framers drafted.

Moreover, some of the specific reforms that Rana advocates, like “multi-member House districts,” I wouldn’t endorse. (There are better ways to achieve some degree of proportional representation in the House, if that is the goal–which itself is debatable.) Also, for pragmatic reasons, I think it is imperative in the short-term to focus on reforms that are achievable without constitutional amendments. The danger to democracy that Trump–and, more significantly, the broader authoritarian movement that Trump leads, as both Kagan and Rana describe–requires prioritizing feasible and effective reforms that can be adopted relatively quickly. That’s why Rick Pildes’s Dunwody Lecture is so important. The lesson to be learned from the unfortunate failure to achieve necessary structural reforms in 2021 and 2022, during the immediate aftermath of the January 6 insurrection, because all the democracy-related focus was on voting rights protection that wouldn’t affect the electoral structures that translate votes into results, should remind us that there is only so much “bandwidth” for the electoral reform agenda. I agree with Rick, as he said in his Dunwody Lecture, that the number one priority to counteract the danger to democracy from political extremism is to replace partisan primaries with the kind of nonpartisan primary in Alaska’s top-4 system. That reform, fortunately, doesn’t require a constitutional amendment, but can and should be achieved on a state-by-state basis as rapidly as possible.