The Constitution in 2030

Crosspost from Balkinization

There are revolutions, and then there are Revolutions. The big, capital-R type Revolutions are the major sea changes in the way we think and act or in our political structures, the moments in which some concept moves, seemingly overnight, from being unthinkable to being incontestable. Then there are revolutions, in something like the literal sense: the same old turning of the wheel, bringing the return of some set of ideas or political views to dominance, but with the certainty that its moment will inevitably pass, and return, and pass and return, and so on. These small-r revolutions are the stuff of our usual politics. They are one reason (the other may be summed up in a name: Keith Moon) why the Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” still sounds fresh.  “Meet the new boss….”

What do the authors of The Constitution in 2020 want: a revolution, or a Revolution? Are they interested in something genuinely new, a real paradigm shift in how we conceive of the Constitution? Or are they really just looking for a regime change, one that will bring them the results they want but that is destined to be merely temporary? Are they just talking about what Barry Friedman describes, in literally revolutionary terms, as the inevitable cycles of constitutional theory, or do they want something more?