Twenty years ago, at a time when U.S. forces were bogged down in Iraq, I attended a gathering that mirrored the sharp divisions in our country. The organizers had invited a diverse mix of people—Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, politicians and celebrities, athletes and bureaucrats, Christians and atheists—to spend a few days in small groups talking through our differences and searching for some commonality. The weekend went well, and on the last day we all joined together for a closing luncheon designed to send us out with a spirit of unity and hope.
A federal judge from Chicago had stayed up late the previous night writing a satirical musical that made good-natured fun of some of the famous people present, especially the politicians. Talented Broadway performers sang the rhymed lyrics, and lots of laughter accompanied the light-hearted roast. Judging by the friendly chatter in the room during lunch, the conveners’ plan seemed to be working. Until the final panel, that is.
One speaker, Dick Thornburgh, the U.S. Attorney General and former governor of Pennsylvania, chose a controversial topic: defending the president’s decision to invade Iraq. The war had been presented as an emergency action to seize Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction—only, as it turned out, we found no weapons of mass destruction. Thornburgh contended that, even so, President George W. Bush had as much legal right to invade Iraq as the previous president, Bill Clinton, had to bomb Serbia several years before.
Suddenly a woman at the other end of the panel jumped to her feet. She was a prominent CNN reporter, a TV personality instantly recognizable for her bright African dashikis. “I cannot allow a statement like that to go unchallenged!” she said, in a voice loud enough to fill the room without a microphone. The moderator quickly reminded her of the rules, that each speaker had five uninterrupted minutes followed by a time for rebuttal. She sighed, shook her head, and sank back into her seat.
Twice more the reporter stood up to interrupt Thornburgh, despite the moderator’s efforts to restrain her. Finally she said, “I will use every muscle in my body to try and stay seated while he states these blatant untruths.”
Clearly rattled, Thornburgh finished his prepared remarks. The moderator now faced an audience that had stiffened into tense silence. Any thought of unity had vanished.
After a few awkward moments a new speaker, one with a heavy accent, took the microphone. It was Xiao Qiang, a theoretical physicist who had left China after the Tiananmen Square protests, and now led a movement to support Chinese dissidents. “You are a strong country,” he began, speaking softly and deliberately. “Yet your real strength does not come from your military, though it is powerful. Nor does it come from your money, though you have much.”
Qiang paused, and I looked out over a room perfectly still, hanging on his words. “We have just seen the real strength of America. You sing songs making fun of your leaders. Two people on the same panel refute each other. Do you realize how rare that is? In many countries, someone would be arrested or even killed after such a luncheon. But we will shake hands and perhaps even hug those with whom we disagree. This is democracy. This is the greatness of the United States of America.”
As if every window in the room had been flung open, the atmosphere changed at once. Tension melted away. What had divided us, now united us. We are Americans—of course we’ll disagree with each other. Doesn’t our Constitution guarantee that right?
I thought back to that gathering recently as I read a new book by Yuval Levin: American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation—and Could Again. Drawing largely on The Federalist Papers, Levin explores in detail why the nation’s founders decided on the shape of the new nation’s government. Frankly, I had not given much thought to that process since a 10th-grade civics class, and it surprised me to read such an upbeat assessment at a time when we hear mostly complaints about Washington, D.C.
Congress is paralytic. We should abolish the electoral college. The Supreme Court is anachronistic. The Constitution needs updating. I hear such criticisms from conservatives and liberals alike, along with their proposals to streamline and “modernize” the federal government. One by one, Levin considers each criticism, explains the founders’ logic, and cautions against a rash overreaction. Read the book if you have doubts; it convinced me that the “Founding Fathers” knew what they were doing.
Levin, himself an immigrant from Israel, points out that the nascent United States confronted a unique situation. A nation of immigrants, it had to find a way to govern minority groups hailing from many places, in addition to several million indigenous and enslaved people. Historically, empires favored one powerful majority group and subjugated the rest—precisely the situation that many of the colonists had fled and wanted to avoid.
In the years between the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the Constitution in 1789, the Founding Fathers observed the original thirteen colonies’ attempts to organize themselves. Some had autocratic governors while four of them had no governors at all. Some had contentious legislative bodies whereas others seemed more like rubber stamps. Laws varied from state to state, with no arbiter to appeal to if a dispute arose between states.
Levin admits that the founders settled on an inefficient style of federal governance. For example, in a parliamentary system the majority party can enact policies at will, without having to negotiate with the opposition. An autocratic system, as in Russia and China, is even more efficient: one leader determines policy. In contrast, the U.S. has two legislative bodies, the Senate and House, and they may be controlled by different parties, or even by a different party from that of the President.
Intentionally, the founders built in checks and balances to assure that no entity holds too much power. Filibusters and super-majority votes give minority parties a way to clog up the system, requiring ever more negotiation and compromise. How many times have we seen the government prepare to shut down over budget disputes, only to work out a compromise at the last possible hour?
Xiao Qiang’s reminder still rings in my ears, especially in these divisive times. “This is democracy. This is the greatness of the United States of America.” Of course we’ll disagree on important issues—we’re Americans.
I’ll give Yuval Levin the last word: “The breakdown of political culture in our day is not a function of our having forgotten how to agree with one another but of our having forgotten how to disagree constructively.”
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