A More (or Less) Perfect Union

Greetings, dear Listeners!

We are releasing our podcast early this week. We figured that an episode about the unity of the American people would sound good right about now, given the circumstances. Damir’s Tuesday Note — which will respond to a Provocation — will be published this coming Thursday.

What holds the United States together? Three hundred million people of different races, religions, and histories, spread out over half a continent — do we have a system that truly represents all of them? Who is that “We” in “We the people” and “We hold these truths”?

Yuval Levin’s answer to these questions might seem quaint at first: The Constitution. A scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and editor of the policy journal National Affairs, he has written several books about American politics and institutions. His latest is called American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified our Nation and and Could Again. In it, he makes a compelling argument that the Constitution is more than a list of laws, rights and limits to political power. It is a set of institutional structures that safeguard social peace. It is a text about how to live together.

This is an ambitious reading of the Constitution, to say the least. And we had questions. Christine asks how the Constitution can be a unifying force when it has effectively become a tribal marker in our culture wars. Damir wants to know whether the need to reform the Constitution can be reconciled with Yuval’s basically conservative impulse to preserve and revere it.

This is a timely, serious conversation which takes a sober look at the most important tool we have to face this season of crisis. We urge you to give it a listen!

Required Reading

• American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation and Could Again by Yuval Levin (Hachette).

• A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream by Yuval Levin (Hachette).

• The Fractured Republic: Renewing America’s Social Contract in the Age of Individualism by Yuval Levin (Hachette).

This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Governance and Markets.