The core underlying message of Justice Thomas's brilliant speech: Progressivism is falling apart because it is contrary to the American idea. The argument that matters today is what will replace it.
We need some calm in America. We need to move beyond the "entitlement attitude" and focus on moving forward with the ideas of our founders. We are industrialized, but such an influx of people from other countries who do not want to accept our values have degraded what we have built. New ideas need to pull from basic foundations that those founders, who were braver than today's population, planted for us to grow. Some deep thought and review of potential unintentional outcomes should be taking place. We also need to understand that we as a country are unique, but we also have a rich history and culture. I have always believed that the United States is a place that, despite being a young country, in the context of world history, is intended to be a special place on earth.
If you want calm, I strongly recommend Coolidge’s address on the 150th anniversary. An excerpt:
About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.
I would question the optimism of this piece. Right now, Republicans (who, presumably, are heirs to the principles of the Declaration in the context of this discussion) have a bare majority in the House and the Senate. The share of the vote that Republicans get nationwide is rarely more than 50% - it might be as little as 46% or even less in November. Or perhaps more - perhaps the pessimists are wrong on this score. Perhaps Republicans will eke out a victory after all.
But the Democratic party of today, which is in substance, if not in name, a Socialist party now, will get at least 50% - probably. So keeping the Progressives at bay will require a perfect sequence of consecutive wins. Some states are lost to Progressives/Democrats/Socialists forever, like WA, MA... Some might be lost at some point, and never recover (e.g., AZ, WI). I worry about OH - Vivek does not inspire confidence.
The point of all this is that we are balancing on a knife's edge. One more electoral detour into a Biden 2.0 (for whatever reason - lack of Republican voter enthusiasm in that particular election, lack of money, a strategy that targets the wrong states, a milquetoast Romney-esque candidate that inspires no one, a Dem candidate with more talent than most of them have shown lately, etc.), and we'll get progressivism nation-wide, with a vengeance. Socialism and progressivism are not definitionally the same, but they are fellow travelers.
Socialism is like a cancer - once you get it, it's virtually impossible to fully get it out. And getting it is easy - to millions of people, the *rhetoric* of socialism is tempting. Perhaps socialism in America is waiting for a truly talented demagogue to sell it properly. Think AOC, but with more than two functional neurons in her brain.
I am. And I will be doing what I can, where I am, with what I have. If the rest of us do the same, we will prevail. If not, we'll deserve our wretched fate.
As someone who holds liberal views on social issues while I do not 100% agree with Mr. Tucker and Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, I do think there is some truth in what both of them say. I agree the Democratic Party has moved too far and the left in this country has lost its way. They have become all about treating people as groups rather than as individuals, want to the government to adopt downright authoritarian measures to enact their will, want ever stricter laws concerning firearms, want to compel people to use another’s pronouns, want biological males competing in women’s sports and if you don’t agree they compel you using the power of the state to allow it, they shut down free speech down because it’s “harmful” and “bigoted”, they are opposed to religious freedom, they hate capitalism, religion and the nuclear family, say if you have children you’ll destroy the Earth, etc. They have no regard whatever for the Constitution out it’s ideals.
The hard-left Democratic Party of today is run by progressives and leftists like AOC, Zahran Mamdani, Bernie Sanders, Graham Platner, Elizabeth Warren, Ro Khanna, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, etc. They couldn’t care less about what our founding fathers wrote in the founding documents, only enacting “social and racial justice” whatever that may mean at any given moment. The Democratic Party needs to return to being a liberal rather than progressive party and seek to make positive social change while staying within the bounds of the Constitution. As a liberal on social issues that’s what I believe in. I don’t believe in authoritarian garbage like reparations for slavery, laws that compel pronoun use, suing Christian bakers for discrimination if they don’t bake a cake for a gay wedding, cancel culture, call out culture, Medicare for All, vaccine mandates and mask mandates, tearing down historical statues, banning books, or mandatory gun buybacks. I believe in sensible policies that will make the country a better place like universal background checks, civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, disability rights, environmental regulations, laws to protect animals from cruelty and abuse, protecting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, strong unions, universal healthcare, and a higher minimum wage.
I’m NOT for the more extreme policies the progressives and leftists in the party are pushing these days. Yes, I’m pro-choice but I don’t agree with allowing abortion up to the moment of conception! Yes, I’m for gay marriage and LGBTQ+ rights, but I’m not for gender-affirming care for minors, Trans people competing in women’s sports or kids being able to read LGBT books that are not age-appropriate. Yes, I’m for racial justice but not reparations for slavery, quotas, set-asides, DEI in its current form, or hate speech laws. Yes, I’m for welfare programs. But I believe in welfare being about survival, not helping people through life. Nor do I believe in handing it out like candy. Yes, I’m for environmental protection. But I’m totally against banning plastic straws, shutting down nuclear plants, banning fracking, top-down government imposed solutions to climate change, renewable energy in its current form, banning gas powered cars, and telling people not to have children or we need less people so we can save the planet. Yes, I’m for gun control. But I 100% disagreed with New Mexico Governor Michelle Grisham Lujan suspending the second amendment in her state. Yes, I’m for a social safety net. But I wouldn’t be caught dead advocating for free college for all, student loan forgiveness, city-run grocery stores, free public transit, letting people buy whatever they want with the SNAP program, or distributing resources based on skin color.
I believe in being a critical patriot not hating America! I believe in improving capitalism not abolishing capitalism. I believe in teaching immigrants, minority groups. women, LGBTQ+ people, disabled people, and poor people empowerment and patriotism not victimhood and identity politics. I believe in reform public education to make or the best it can be not to use it as a tool for left-wing indoctrination. I believe in making College more affordable not making taxpayers pay for free college for everyone. I believe in actually helping uplift Native Americans not have them hooked on welfare subsidies for life that keep them trapped in dependence. I’m a liberal not a progressive. I want to see the return of the Democratic Party of FDR, Harry S. Truman, Henry Wallace, JFK, RFK, Ted Kennedy, LBJ, Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern, Birch Bayh, Frank Church, John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. A party that fought for civil rights for all, blue collar workers, labor unions, improving capitalism, helping the poor, to treat people as individuals not by color or gender, to be critical of but still love America, and for reasonable policies to improve life for our citizens and protect our planet and all the creatures within it. I want to see the return of an activist left that fights for equality and justice using non-violent and strategic means.
1. Article V convention would be a disaster. Politicians today swim in the progressive sea so far removed from Madison, Monroe, Hamilton, and Jay. They would enshrine our slavery in the name of positive rights.
2. Most people thanks to education do not understand natural rights versus civil rights.
3. Repeal the 16th and 17th amendments. The 16th was the first amendment to grant the Federal Government an additional power. Big mistake. The 17th amendment neutered the State's voice at the Federal level, thus eliminating a check on Federal power.
4. The administrative state must be dismantled. It is unconstitutional. It violates the separation of powers.
5. I propose the following amendment: The Declaration Amendment:
Section 1.
The principles of the Declaration of Independence are hereby affirmed as constitutional: that all persons are created equal, endowed with unalienable rights, and that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed for the sole purpose of securing those rights.
Section 2.
The individual is the fundamental unit of political authority. No collective body, including government, may claim or exercise any right or power that is not delegable by individuals consistent with their natural rights.
Section 3.
Government shall not assume the role of provider, benefactor, or manager of individual lives, nor shall it create dependence or exercise authority beyond the protection of natural rights.
Section 4.
Any governmental act that exceeds the powers delegable by individuals, or that infringes upon natural rights, is unconstitutional and void.
Section 5.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
6. I know such an amendment would never pass but I would be happy if the Supreme Court overturns the Slaughter-House Cases 1872, and Wickard v Filburn 1941 to start. Then we can declare the Administrative Act of 1946 unconstitutional.
I suppose there's no point in noting that your points 3 through 6 directly contradict your points 1 & 2. LOL
I completely agree with 3 & 4. I think two of the three items in 6 are likely to be overturned by the current Supreme Court (Wickard and the 1946 Act). I think there could be some difficulty in implementation regarding 5(2) and 5(3). I think 5(4) is already a principle of law, but only currently has one enforcement mechanism -- lawsuits -- which is part of why I suggested an amendment to allow 2/3 of the states to overturn federal laws, regulations, and court rulings. Gotta have some teeth.
This is not a logical syllogism. Last time I checked you do not need a Article V State Convention to either pass an amendment or repeal an amendment. I give you 18th and 21th as examples. The Slaughter House Cases, thank you NOLA, so nerfed the Privileges or Immunities clause that we have to hoist on to the Equal Protection clause of the 14th to impose the Bill of Rights onto the States. The States, while closer to the people, have demonstrated, time and time again, they are no defender of rights. Therefore: We the People at all times and all places must limit the power and scope of any government. The only proper use of political power is for the protection of rights. All else leads to corruption.
It’s not just the 18th and 21st. All amendments have been proposed for ratification by 2/3 majorities in both houses of Congress.
My point is that, ignoring the first ten (which were passed as a package by the first Congress), that works out to just 17 amendments in 237 years. I would say “for an average of one every 14 years”, but that doesn’t reflect what really happened: most amendments were passed in clusters around the same time as each other. So if the politics lines up, yes, a lot can happen pretty fast.
BUT: name an amendment you think could get 2/3 in either house in the foreseeable future. That used to be a rubber stamp, but now we can’t even get cabinet members confirmed without the Vice President breaking the tie.
So if you want real reform, the solution the Founding Fathers expressly designed for exactly this situation is the most likely to succeed.
It is impossible for Congress to ratify anything that will limit government. It does not matter because the progressives will post-modernly make the “living constitution” say anything they want it to say. Thank Wilson.
I agree with John Adams that
'Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.'
Progressives have long displaced any notion of morals. They only believe in power and the desire to Rule. They follow:
“Therefore a wise prince will seek means by which his subjects will always and in every possible condition of things have need of his government and then they will always be faithful to him.” The Prince, Machiavelli.
The progressive will use the Article V convention to fulfill Obama’s dream of a constitution that says what government should do for you. He did not like the negative charter of rights of limited government
It is certainly possible that we could lose the elections for delegates to the convention. We could also lose the elections for House and Senate.
As you say, Congress will not limit itself. A Convention is the only way that's ever going to happen.
One reform I mention in my essay would be an amendment enforcing adherence to textualism and original intent. Another would be an override power for federal laws, regulations, and court rulings by 2/3 of the states.
Maybe those pass, maybe they don't, but that's the beauty of it: no convention without 2/3, no ratification without 3/4. 38 states are not going to ratifiy an Orwellian nightmare. They just aren't.
There were a lot of forces at work in the late 19th/early 20th century to destroy the American experiment. Progressivism was surely one. Another was the British conspiracy--literally--to infiltrate American businesses, government and and academia to instruct them in the British Imperial economic system. The British Imperial system is predicated on a central bank and the financialization of the economy and the pursuit of money. The American system was predicated on the creativity of man and an economy that produced, processed and manufactured commodities and goods and built things, and protected those efforts with tariffs.
The success of McKinley in resurrecting the American System encouraged other nations to adopt it, including Japan, France, and China. Even Bismarck and the Tsar of Russia had advisors fluent in the system and started adapting them. Then a strange rash of "anarchist" assassins started eliminating world leaders--eleven of them over a 20-year period, including McKinley and ending with Archduke Ferdinand.
Chatham House, the think tank behind the British effort, established its sister chapter in America, the Council on Foreign Relations, in 1922. They were so successful in educating Americans in their system, that within a generation all knowledge of the American System was completely forgotten. FDR discovered it and studied it for eight years while bed-ridden with polio, and his goal was to re-establish it when WW-II ended. He even rebuked Churchill at their last meeting at Yalta in 1945, "The United States did not fight this war so that the British could re-establish their colonial designs."
Fortunately, we have a president and an administration that understands this history. Trump's renaming of Mt. McKinley and meeting Putin in Alaska in 2025 was more than symbolic. It was a direct rebuke to the British and a reminder to Americans that the Russians sold Alaska to us for a song, not so much because they loved America, but because they wished to keep it out of the hands of our common enemy, England. The Gulf of America, tariffs, disparaging the Fed, Venezuela, Iran energy independence, manufacturing renaissance and bi-lateral trade agreements with sovereign nations that benefit both nations' peoples are all part of the strategy to free America, and the freedom-loving world, of the British Imperial system.
RINOs and progressives are blocking this second American Revolution, either out of historical ignorance, corruption or as bureaucratic guardians of decay. After all, the Council on Foreign Relations published a white paper in 1977 that was adopted by Brzezinski and sold to Carter--that a controlled decline of manufacturing in the West was best for the world. This strategy allowed the British and their accomplices in the US MIC to create chaos and conflict and forever wars, all of which benefitted the British Imperial system, re-branded as the as the globalist rules-based order. On May 20, 2026, CFR launched "The Future of American Strategy" an "initiative" which is an admission of Trump's complete dismantling of their successful 50-year reign in the rules-based order and the subsequent smothering of human advancement. The globalists are terrified of sovereign nations and peoples, and are scrambling for "initiatives" to turn the tide back in their favor.
Think about this. In 1863, at the height of the American Civil War, the United States federal government budget outlays totaled $726.1 million (up from $63.1 million in 1860), which is equivalent to approximatly $19.19 billion in 2026 dollars. This compared to projected FY'26 expenditures of $7.4 trillion (with a deficit of $1.9 trillion).
Can there be any doubt that the U.S. federal government is already too large and broad in scope even without all the rules, laws, regulations and programs the progressives want to add?
We need some calm in America. We need to move beyond the "entitlement attitude" and focus on moving forward with the ideas of our founders. We are industrialized, but such an influx of people from other countries who do not want to accept our values have degraded what we have built. New ideas need to pull from basic foundations that those founders, who were braver than today's population, planted for us to grow. Some deep thought and review of potential unintentional outcomes should be taking place. We also need to understand that we as a country are unique, but we also have a rich history and culture. I have always believed that the United States is a place that, despite being a young country, in the context of world history, is intended to be a special place on earth.
Amen and amen.
If you want calm, I strongly recommend Coolidge’s address on the 150th anniversary. An excerpt:
About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.
Thank you.
I would question the optimism of this piece. Right now, Republicans (who, presumably, are heirs to the principles of the Declaration in the context of this discussion) have a bare majority in the House and the Senate. The share of the vote that Republicans get nationwide is rarely more than 50% - it might be as little as 46% or even less in November. Or perhaps more - perhaps the pessimists are wrong on this score. Perhaps Republicans will eke out a victory after all.
But the Democratic party of today, which is in substance, if not in name, a Socialist party now, will get at least 50% - probably. So keeping the Progressives at bay will require a perfect sequence of consecutive wins. Some states are lost to Progressives/Democrats/Socialists forever, like WA, MA... Some might be lost at some point, and never recover (e.g., AZ, WI). I worry about OH - Vivek does not inspire confidence.
The point of all this is that we are balancing on a knife's edge. One more electoral detour into a Biden 2.0 (for whatever reason - lack of Republican voter enthusiasm in that particular election, lack of money, a strategy that targets the wrong states, a milquetoast Romney-esque candidate that inspires no one, a Dem candidate with more talent than most of them have shown lately, etc.), and we'll get progressivism nation-wide, with a vengeance. Socialism and progressivism are not definitionally the same, but they are fellow travelers.
Socialism is like a cancer - once you get it, it's virtually impossible to fully get it out. And getting it is easy - to millions of people, the *rhetoric* of socialism is tempting. Perhaps socialism in America is waiting for a truly talented demagogue to sell it properly. Think AOC, but with more than two functional neurons in her brain.
So I am not an optimist.
I am. And I will be doing what I can, where I am, with what I have. If the rest of us do the same, we will prevail. If not, we'll deserve our wretched fate.
As someone who holds liberal views on social issues while I do not 100% agree with Mr. Tucker and Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, I do think there is some truth in what both of them say. I agree the Democratic Party has moved too far and the left in this country has lost its way. They have become all about treating people as groups rather than as individuals, want to the government to adopt downright authoritarian measures to enact their will, want ever stricter laws concerning firearms, want to compel people to use another’s pronouns, want biological males competing in women’s sports and if you don’t agree they compel you using the power of the state to allow it, they shut down free speech down because it’s “harmful” and “bigoted”, they are opposed to religious freedom, they hate capitalism, religion and the nuclear family, say if you have children you’ll destroy the Earth, etc. They have no regard whatever for the Constitution out it’s ideals.
The hard-left Democratic Party of today is run by progressives and leftists like AOC, Zahran Mamdani, Bernie Sanders, Graham Platner, Elizabeth Warren, Ro Khanna, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, etc. They couldn’t care less about what our founding fathers wrote in the founding documents, only enacting “social and racial justice” whatever that may mean at any given moment. The Democratic Party needs to return to being a liberal rather than progressive party and seek to make positive social change while staying within the bounds of the Constitution. As a liberal on social issues that’s what I believe in. I don’t believe in authoritarian garbage like reparations for slavery, laws that compel pronoun use, suing Christian bakers for discrimination if they don’t bake a cake for a gay wedding, cancel culture, call out culture, Medicare for All, vaccine mandates and mask mandates, tearing down historical statues, banning books, or mandatory gun buybacks. I believe in sensible policies that will make the country a better place like universal background checks, civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, disability rights, environmental regulations, laws to protect animals from cruelty and abuse, protecting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, strong unions, universal healthcare, and a higher minimum wage.
I’m NOT for the more extreme policies the progressives and leftists in the party are pushing these days. Yes, I’m pro-choice but I don’t agree with allowing abortion up to the moment of conception! Yes, I’m for gay marriage and LGBTQ+ rights, but I’m not for gender-affirming care for minors, Trans people competing in women’s sports or kids being able to read LGBT books that are not age-appropriate. Yes, I’m for racial justice but not reparations for slavery, quotas, set-asides, DEI in its current form, or hate speech laws. Yes, I’m for welfare programs. But I believe in welfare being about survival, not helping people through life. Nor do I believe in handing it out like candy. Yes, I’m for environmental protection. But I’m totally against banning plastic straws, shutting down nuclear plants, banning fracking, top-down government imposed solutions to climate change, renewable energy in its current form, banning gas powered cars, and telling people not to have children or we need less people so we can save the planet. Yes, I’m for gun control. But I 100% disagreed with New Mexico Governor Michelle Grisham Lujan suspending the second amendment in her state. Yes, I’m for a social safety net. But I wouldn’t be caught dead advocating for free college for all, student loan forgiveness, city-run grocery stores, free public transit, letting people buy whatever they want with the SNAP program, or distributing resources based on skin color.
I believe in being a critical patriot not hating America! I believe in improving capitalism not abolishing capitalism. I believe in teaching immigrants, minority groups. women, LGBTQ+ people, disabled people, and poor people empowerment and patriotism not victimhood and identity politics. I believe in reform public education to make or the best it can be not to use it as a tool for left-wing indoctrination. I believe in making College more affordable not making taxpayers pay for free college for everyone. I believe in actually helping uplift Native Americans not have them hooked on welfare subsidies for life that keep them trapped in dependence. I’m a liberal not a progressive. I want to see the return of the Democratic Party of FDR, Harry S. Truman, Henry Wallace, JFK, RFK, Ted Kennedy, LBJ, Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern, Birch Bayh, Frank Church, John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. A party that fought for civil rights for all, blue collar workers, labor unions, improving capitalism, helping the poor, to treat people as individuals not by color or gender, to be critical of but still love America, and for reasonable policies to improve life for our citizens and protect our planet and all the creatures within it. I want to see the return of an activist left that fights for equality and justice using non-violent and strategic means.
1. Article V convention would be a disaster. Politicians today swim in the progressive sea so far removed from Madison, Monroe, Hamilton, and Jay. They would enshrine our slavery in the name of positive rights.
2. Most people thanks to education do not understand natural rights versus civil rights.
3. Repeal the 16th and 17th amendments. The 16th was the first amendment to grant the Federal Government an additional power. Big mistake. The 17th amendment neutered the State's voice at the Federal level, thus eliminating a check on Federal power.
4. The administrative state must be dismantled. It is unconstitutional. It violates the separation of powers.
5. I propose the following amendment: The Declaration Amendment:
Section 1.
The principles of the Declaration of Independence are hereby affirmed as constitutional: that all persons are created equal, endowed with unalienable rights, and that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed for the sole purpose of securing those rights.
Section 2.
The individual is the fundamental unit of political authority. No collective body, including government, may claim or exercise any right or power that is not delegable by individuals consistent with their natural rights.
Section 3.
Government shall not assume the role of provider, benefactor, or manager of individual lives, nor shall it create dependence or exercise authority beyond the protection of natural rights.
Section 4.
Any governmental act that exceeds the powers delegable by individuals, or that infringes upon natural rights, is unconstitutional and void.
Section 5.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
6. I know such an amendment would never pass but I would be happy if the Supreme Court overturns the Slaughter-House Cases 1872, and Wickard v Filburn 1941 to start. Then we can declare the Administrative Act of 1946 unconstitutional.
I suppose there's no point in noting that your points 3 through 6 directly contradict your points 1 & 2. LOL
I completely agree with 3 & 4. I think two of the three items in 6 are likely to be overturned by the current Supreme Court (Wickard and the 1946 Act). I think there could be some difficulty in implementation regarding 5(2) and 5(3). I think 5(4) is already a principle of law, but only currently has one enforcement mechanism -- lawsuits -- which is part of why I suggested an amendment to allow 2/3 of the states to overturn federal laws, regulations, and court rulings. Gotta have some teeth.
This is not a logical syllogism. Last time I checked you do not need a Article V State Convention to either pass an amendment or repeal an amendment. I give you 18th and 21th as examples. The Slaughter House Cases, thank you NOLA, so nerfed the Privileges or Immunities clause that we have to hoist on to the Equal Protection clause of the 14th to impose the Bill of Rights onto the States. The States, while closer to the people, have demonstrated, time and time again, they are no defender of rights. Therefore: We the People at all times and all places must limit the power and scope of any government. The only proper use of political power is for the protection of rights. All else leads to corruption.
It’s not just the 18th and 21st. All amendments have been proposed for ratification by 2/3 majorities in both houses of Congress.
My point is that, ignoring the first ten (which were passed as a package by the first Congress), that works out to just 17 amendments in 237 years. I would say “for an average of one every 14 years”, but that doesn’t reflect what really happened: most amendments were passed in clusters around the same time as each other. So if the politics lines up, yes, a lot can happen pretty fast.
BUT: name an amendment you think could get 2/3 in either house in the foreseeable future. That used to be a rubber stamp, but now we can’t even get cabinet members confirmed without the Vice President breaking the tie.
So if you want real reform, the solution the Founding Fathers expressly designed for exactly this situation is the most likely to succeed.
It is impossible for Congress to ratify anything that will limit government. It does not matter because the progressives will post-modernly make the “living constitution” say anything they want it to say. Thank Wilson.
I agree with John Adams that
'Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.'
Progressives have long displaced any notion of morals. They only believe in power and the desire to Rule. They follow:
“Therefore a wise prince will seek means by which his subjects will always and in every possible condition of things have need of his government and then they will always be faithful to him.” The Prince, Machiavelli.
The progressive will use the Article V convention to fulfill Obama’s dream of a constitution that says what government should do for you. He did not like the negative charter of rights of limited government
It is certainly possible that we could lose the elections for delegates to the convention. We could also lose the elections for House and Senate.
As you say, Congress will not limit itself. A Convention is the only way that's ever going to happen.
One reform I mention in my essay would be an amendment enforcing adherence to textualism and original intent. Another would be an override power for federal laws, regulations, and court rulings by 2/3 of the states.
Maybe those pass, maybe they don't, but that's the beauty of it: no convention without 2/3, no ratification without 3/4. 38 states are not going to ratifiy an Orwellian nightmare. They just aren't.
There were a lot of forces at work in the late 19th/early 20th century to destroy the American experiment. Progressivism was surely one. Another was the British conspiracy--literally--to infiltrate American businesses, government and and academia to instruct them in the British Imperial economic system. The British Imperial system is predicated on a central bank and the financialization of the economy and the pursuit of money. The American system was predicated on the creativity of man and an economy that produced, processed and manufactured commodities and goods and built things, and protected those efforts with tariffs.
The success of McKinley in resurrecting the American System encouraged other nations to adopt it, including Japan, France, and China. Even Bismarck and the Tsar of Russia had advisors fluent in the system and started adapting them. Then a strange rash of "anarchist" assassins started eliminating world leaders--eleven of them over a 20-year period, including McKinley and ending with Archduke Ferdinand.
Chatham House, the think tank behind the British effort, established its sister chapter in America, the Council on Foreign Relations, in 1922. They were so successful in educating Americans in their system, that within a generation all knowledge of the American System was completely forgotten. FDR discovered it and studied it for eight years while bed-ridden with polio, and his goal was to re-establish it when WW-II ended. He even rebuked Churchill at their last meeting at Yalta in 1945, "The United States did not fight this war so that the British could re-establish their colonial designs."
Fortunately, we have a president and an administration that understands this history. Trump's renaming of Mt. McKinley and meeting Putin in Alaska in 2025 was more than symbolic. It was a direct rebuke to the British and a reminder to Americans that the Russians sold Alaska to us for a song, not so much because they loved America, but because they wished to keep it out of the hands of our common enemy, England. The Gulf of America, tariffs, disparaging the Fed, Venezuela, Iran energy independence, manufacturing renaissance and bi-lateral trade agreements with sovereign nations that benefit both nations' peoples are all part of the strategy to free America, and the freedom-loving world, of the British Imperial system.
RINOs and progressives are blocking this second American Revolution, either out of historical ignorance, corruption or as bureaucratic guardians of decay. After all, the Council on Foreign Relations published a white paper in 1977 that was adopted by Brzezinski and sold to Carter--that a controlled decline of manufacturing in the West was best for the world. This strategy allowed the British and their accomplices in the US MIC to create chaos and conflict and forever wars, all of which benefitted the British Imperial system, re-branded as the as the globalist rules-based order. On May 20, 2026, CFR launched "The Future of American Strategy" an "initiative" which is an admission of Trump's complete dismantling of their successful 50-year reign in the rules-based order and the subsequent smothering of human advancement. The globalists are terrified of sovereign nations and peoples, and are scrambling for "initiatives" to turn the tide back in their favor.
They're trying to block it. I believe they're going to fail.
Think about this. In 1863, at the height of the American Civil War, the United States federal government budget outlays totaled $726.1 million (up from $63.1 million in 1860), which is equivalent to approximatly $19.19 billion in 2026 dollars. This compared to projected FY'26 expenditures of $7.4 trillion (with a deficit of $1.9 trillion).
Can there be any doubt that the U.S. federal government is already too large and broad in scope even without all the rules, laws, regulations and programs the progressives want to add?
The last century has been rough.