What Medhi Hasan should have told the New Right

Progressive journalist Mehdi Hasan recently went viral for his “debate” with 20 so-called conservatives on the popular YouTube channel Jubilee. The program is formatted such that Hasan makes a claim, and then his opponents, seated in a circle around him, race each other to the chair opposite Hasan when they wish to refute a claim. When the claim, “Donald Trump is defying the US Constitution” came up, contestants lunged for the chair – not to deny the claim, but to dismiss the Constitution outright. Hasan, it seems, was ready to argue that Trump is defying the Constitution, but he was utterly unprepared to defend the document on its merits.

We shouldn’t read too much into this gathering of the chronically online. Still, it reveals a deeper, more troubling trend in the United States: civic illiteracy. The fringes of both the left and now the right are willing to abandon the Constitution. They see it as nothing more than an obstacle to accomplishing their political ends.

In the most viral moment of the video, a self-described fascist (no, really), said to Hasan, “I would say, with Trump being anti-Constitution, I don’t really care . . . quite frankly, if Trump is anti-Constitution, good, and I think he should go further.” Hasan pressed, “You just don’t like the bits [of the Constitution] that you disagree with.” The contestant responded, “Yeah absolutely. I’m more than willing to amend it.” When asked if Democrats can do the same, he said, “No absolutely not,” before admitting to opposing democracy and openly espousing fascism.

The next contestant echoed the first: “To be honest, I don’t find the Constitution to be that important.” A third mused, “What’s the use of the Constitution?”

At one point, Hasan was asked why he cares about the Constitution. He questioned how a government could be run without a framework for governance and launched into a diatribe about some of its rights protections, neither of which are unique to the US Constitution or its specific provisions. But what is special about our Constitution?

Here’s what Hasan should have said.

The Constitution isn’t just a list of rights – it’s a framework for cooperation in a divided republic. As political theorist Yuval Levin argues, its genius lies in compelling Americans with different views to compete, negotiate and compromise. This isn’t dysfunction; it’s design. The Constitution slows us down, diffuses power and forces compromise to prevent domination by any one faction. This system works only if citizens are willing to engage in the process (and, as Levin points out, if institutions respect their roles and constraints).

Retired Judge Thomas Griffith has noted that this system assumes a certain type of citizen. One who is willing to listen, compromise and share power. Under this framework, nobody gets everything he or she wants. The idea is that through debate and negotiation, a workable consensus can be reached. In short, the Constitution isn’t for any one constituency; rather, it’s a framework to help us coexist in a pluralistic society.

This is, perhaps, why John Adams wrote that the Constitution “is wholly inadequate to the government” of an immoral people. It may have even been on Benjamin Franklin’s mind when, as the Constitutional Convention was coming to a close, he was asked what form of government the delegates had decided on. “A republic, if you can keep it.”

There’s a growing appetite on both sides of the aisle to skirt the hard work of keeping our republic. There is no longer, it seems, a shared consensus that the Constitution remains our best hope for holding together our free and fiercely diverse republic. This is why those of us who believe in the Constitution need to be prepared to defend its merits from first principles. We can’t, as Hasan presumed, just use it as some sort of trump card.

This will only become increasingly important. Civic illiteracy is on the rise. Support for the Constitution is declining. WB Yeat’s proverbial gyre is widening. Only a return to Constitutional principles can hold the center.