The Transformative Potential of Muslim America

Crosspost from Balkinization

Ideas do not move our constitutional norms, people do. This much is a lesson of recent scholarship by Bruce Ackerman, Reva Siegel, and Robert Post. New constitutional entitlements like the right to bear arms baptized in 2008, on this account, crest on waves of popular mobilization. Architectonic change to fundamental constitutional structures, familiar from Reconstruction and the New Deal, necessitates multiple political sallies by majorities engorged with populist fire.  

In predicting the shape of constitutionalism to come, therefore, it may be useful to search for emergent social movements with transformative potential. Complementing Robin West’s focus on legislated constitutionalism, resisting Richard Ford’s skepticism about abstract constitutionalism, we might ask: What social movement, so far unrealized, has a potential to pressure entrenched constitutional norms by 2020?