Mike Lofgren, Common Dreams

Imagine if the people of Germany's capital, Berlin, had no representation in the Bundestag. Picture the last presidential election in France resulting in Marine Le Pen defeating Emmanuel Macron while garnering millions fewer votes. Finally, suppose that Britain's parliamentary constituencies were created so that sparsely populated Scotland enjoyed vastly disproportionate representation.

Perform that thought experiment and you will understand why people in other developed countries shake their heads at the American system of government. For all the obligatory public reverence we render to our Constitution, it has served us poorly for decades. Its negative features stymie modern governance and democracy itself, while its good provisions have been perverted or are virtual dead letter. Worst of all, its very structure impedes sensible revision.

But it is also resistant to change for psychological reasons: the document is so invested with quasi-religious baggage that it has become a totem, foreclosing factual debate about its pluses and minuses. As a first step, before we even attempt to engage the rusty, clanking mechanism of constitutional revision, we need to be able to discuss the matter like adults and prepare the way for reform....

For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. —Matthew 24:24

It has been said that Newt Gingrich is “a dumb person’s idea of a smart person.” Who coined that phrase is a matter of scholarly dispute, but there is broad agreement that the sentiment is applicable. I will go further and say this characteristic of Newt’s is not just a personal foible; it establishes a model for Republican politicians and operatives since his time in Congress.

Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon is considered one of the great political novels of the last century, but it is also very puzzling. Why does Rubashov, the loyal old Bolshevik, confess to capital crimes he did not commit? He is not tortured; he knows (as do his interrogators) that the charges are absurd.

The prospect of four years of Donald J. Trump’s nonstop rants about imaginary conspiracies against his daughter, wholesale slander against the judicial branch and attacks on the press as enemies of the people has caused some Americans to slip into a comforting form of denial. He will be a blip in our history, they say, because our formal institutions, and the American people, will ultimately prevail against a rogue disruptor.