Why do so many Americans seem to worship the Constitution? In his new book, The Constitutional Bind, Aziz Rana argues that today’s reverence for the document—among both Democrats and Republicans—is a distinctive product of the 20th century and the Cold War. Over the years, the US Constitution became the lodestar, globally, for proper governance. The result is a bind, Rana argues, that prevents any redrafting of the Constitution to reflect new and pressing political and socioeconomic realities. The Nation spoke with Rana recently about how our current constitutional bind can be broken.
DSJ: There is an interesting moment, early on in your book, in which you try to explain the ambivalence that marks contemporary liberal views of the Constitution. Some, you say, are clearly aware of the anti-democratic features of…
