No democracy lasts forever : how the Constitution threatens the United States / Erwin Chemerinsky.

New York, N.Y. : Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W.W. Norton & Company, [2024]

©2024

KF4552 .C44 2024

First edition.

How the Constitution threatens the United States

9781324091585 (hardcover)
1324091584 (hardcover)
9781324091592 (ebook)

xiv, 223 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

(OCoLC)1428770637

"This book argues that the Constitution has become a threat to American democracy and must be dramatically changed or replaced if secession is to be avoided. Deeply troubled by the Constitution's inherent flaws, Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of Berkeley Law School, came to the conclusion that our nearly 250-year-old founding document is responsible for the crisis now facing American democracy. Pointing out that just fifteen of the 11,848 amendments proposed since 1789 have passed, Chemerinsky contends that the very nature of our polarization results from the Constitution's 'bad bones', which have created a government that no longer works or has the confidence of the public. Yet political Armageddon can still be avoided, Chemerinsky writes, if a new constitutional convention is empowered to replace the Constitution of 1787, much as the Founding Fathers replaced the outdated Articles of Confederation. If this isn't possible, Americans must give serious thought to forms of secession--including a United States structured like the European Union--based on a recognition that what divides us as a country is, in fact, greater than what unites us"-- Goodreads.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 187-210) and index.

Online version: Chemerinsky, Erwin. No democracy lasts forever. First edition. New York, N.Y. : Liveright Publishing Corporation, [2024] 9781324091592 (OCoLC)1430662050

Onsite Print Resources
Shared Records
All Resources