Part of what I see with 50501/Hands Off protests is that they have a theme of “defending the Constitution” from Trump. This is really a somewhat conservative position and doesn’t have much historical rigor to it.
Prof. Aziz Rana of Boston College Law School is having a moment on Jacobin Radio right now. His basic thesis is that the Constitutional order is so deeply antidemocratic that the left argued with itself and the liberals over whether to focus efforts on challenging it in the early 20th Century. In the broad sweep of history since then, Americans have come to view the Constitution as a sacred text, but in fact, that order is part of what gives the Republicans and the far right their advantages despite losing the popular vote.
The shorter interview: https://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html#S250424 (April 24, 2025)
The 4-part long interview: https://thedigradio.com/archive/ (see the Aziz Rana episodes starting in April 2025) - Part 4 isn’t up yet.
So why should we venerate the Constitution, when it holds us back from real, direct democracy? I think part of what our liberal friends and family hold onto is a trust in the Constitution and the framers. They weren’t geniuses, they were landowners worried about kings taking their property. Use these interviews, or Prof. Rana’s book, to handle those arguments.
Do you think the constitution is a deeply flawed document written by the oligarchs of their time, which included among the institutions it codified slavery, misogyny, and war as a normal part of the human condition? Excellent, you’re in good company and I (among many others) agree with you. That’s why amendments and judges exist, also, so that we’re not limited to its fairly flawed implementations and goals in governing what we’re doing today.
Do you like having human rights, including the freedom to criticize the government, the right to due process, and the right to defend yourself against a tyrannical government? Great! So do I. As it happens there’s a common phrasing that you can use as a quick code-word for saying that, which will engage the support of a massive range of people including among them conservatives, liberals, leftists, military people, police, lawyers, judges, and so on. And you know? It won’t even made them want slavery back, if you do choose to say it that way. You could, of course, decide that it’s more important to alienate 99% of those people immediately, and then provide fodder for extensive arguments with the remaining 1%. You could do that, that would be fun too.
Do you like having big performative “I’m more left than you so I’m superior I’m actually very smart because everything YOU think is good is actually bad” contests which assail whatever people are trying to do and distract from the most urgent issues of the day? Well… you’re in good company with that one, too. This has always been a part of the left from the beginning, and I guess not for nothing; it’s connected up with the freedom to speak your mind, not having to agree with any particular herd, and with having passion about issues and wanting to analyze everything and be on the right side of history. I get it. But I think the fight this person is picking is a pretty silly fight to pick right now.
100% of people you will talk to will understand what’s meant by “the constitution,” and literally nothing about it is anything other than urgent self-defense against a genuinely very urgent threat.
Lol, a piece of paper will not protect you from jackboots. The constitution is a gentlemans agreement that is abided by because it is convenient for everyone most of the time. If it suddenly becomes inconvenient for the bourgeois to abide by it they simply won’t and by the time this happens they will have found enough desperate fascist thugs to make sure you feel powerless to stop them. You’re right though, we shouldn’t be trying to rid the U.S. of the constitution. It isn’t a feasible goal and it will be ignored eventually on its own. OP was not suggesting we start a political movement that focuses on abolishing or rewriting the constitution, they were asking how to convince liberals that the constitution isn’t such a big deal and doesn’t protect them from anything.
Do you want to address anything about what I actually said? This is one of the core things I’ve been saying here.
You can search for “code-word” in my comment to find where I talk about it, if it’s too long to read through and comprehend and you want to skip to the part where I indicate strong agreement with this.
I did read it, no idea what you meant by “code-word” and maybe its because I didn’t sleep last night but it was difficult to grasp what you meant in that paragraph. For someone who claims to agree with me you seem quite upset
Maybe for you. It seemed perfectly coherent to the people that upvoted it. Slow down and read. It’s good for you. I’m being completely serious about that, I was aiming to make a serious point that broadly is in complete agreement with the “a piece of paper won’t do shit to protect you and even what’s written on the paper is seriously flawed in important ways” people.
Honestly not in the slightest. I’m sort of short on patience because of the number of people in this thread who seem to have their thinker miswired and their yeller turned up too high, but that’s nothing to do with this conversation.
I would still love it if you told me what you meant by code-word. I do a lot of reading on a daily basis and I am not reading your lemmy comment a third time just to decipher your meaning.
Absolutely! So, talking about the importance of “the constitution” is a common phrasing for principles that are under deadly attack right now, that you can use which will engage the support of a massive range of people including among them conservatives, liberals, leftists, military people, police, lawyers, judges, and so on. And, using it in that way will not in any way interfere with reforming the problems with it, or indicate to people that we need to go back to having slavery or other atrocities that were codified into it. It’s a way to rally support for things that need support rallied for them right now. Letting protestors out of jail. Not sending anyone to concentration camps. Stopping ICE from busting in people’s houses and terrorizing them. People can get mobilized to oppose that, even if our current constitutional system needs significant reform to be sustainable in any way.
Beyond the current crisis, what this country actually needs is a massive people movement to get the crooks and tyrants out of government. Trump didn’t invent any of those problems or even close to, but if him trying to have the government kill everybody who looks at him funny or gets in his way is what it takes to get that reform going, let’s fucking take advantage and accomplish some things, lord knows we need it.
These people who spend their days trying to prove how “leftist” they are by destroying every tool we have are literally right-wingers.
If you believe words on a piece of paper are going to protect you. you’re incredibly delusional.
You believe words have power or you wouldn’t be out here trying to sabotage us with them.
Ding ding ding you broke the code lol.
I also like how, if you sort of unfocus your eyes and take a broad look over the comments, it’s very obvious that the chief purpose is shitting on “liberals.” There’s very little interest in the topics about democracy and improvement of the government and people power that are the ostensible purpose for this whole thing. Basically, almost all of it boils down to:
Absolutely. It’s just a way to demotivate the left and trick people with the best intentions into shooting themselves in the foot. These people are out en masse here literally because we’re such a leftist space.
If you see someone posing zero solutions but shooting down any possible way of moving any cause that might oppose authoritarianism forward? They’re a fucking MAGA cuckoo.
Yeah. They’re not all fakers, either, I’ve seen these people at actual protests too. The one time it’s happened I thought about interacting with them but I decided it wouldn’t go well and went and hung out with the pro-Palestine people who didn’t feel the need to be injecting a whole bunch of leftist infighting (to the point that it eclipsed anything pro-Palestinian and the leftist infighting became the main thrust of the message).
It wouldn’t be an effective strategy if it didn’t sucker some people into playing along. At this point, though, I think it’s more important to point out that this is happening than to make sure we tiptoe around the few people stupid enough to actually buy into it.