Giving thanks for the Constitution and a nation at odds

THANKSGIVING invites us to pause and consider the gifts we often overlook.

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This year, at a moment of rising political unease and ideological confusion, I am especially grateful for one extraordinary inheritance: a nation and its creed brought into being by the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

Why, in addition to family, friends and a feast, is this on my mind today? In certain circles, especially among “postliberal” thinkers on the right, it’s now fashionable to claim that the Constitution has failed. Some argue that the country’s founding was overly individualistic or insufficiently moral, that our constitutional structure prevents the pursuit of a unified national purpose, or that what we need instead is a more powerful state headed by a muscular executive and a more cohesive cultural or religious identity enforced from above.

These arguments aren’t abstract. Some theorists openly celebrate unchecked executive power or regimes that derive legitimacy from hierarchy rather than the people’s consent. Increasingly, they dismiss the founding not as a glorious achievement but as an obstacle to national renewal through centralized authority.