Elites call the Constitution 'broken,' but Americans see it as their greatest gift

At Colgate University last week, a debate on whether the United States is in a constitutional crisis underscored a deep partisan and intellectual split over the meaning and viability of the Constitution in contemporary politics. Harvard Law Professor Michael Klarman used the forum to argue that current events reveal a broader problem: an authoritarian strain rooted in historical white supremacy that, in his view, threatens the democratic project. He went further to describe President Donald Trump and many of his supporters as fascists and to condemn immigration enforcement as a system that relies on what he called concentration-camp-like conditions. He framed the constitutional system as not merely stressed but failing, saying the crisis runs deeper than legal doctrine and into the lived life of the republic.

Jonathan Turley, a Washington-based law professor, countered that the moment represents a crisis of faith rather than a legal crisis with a breakdown of constitutional mechanics alone. He noted a growing movement in academia that questions the usefulness of constitutionalism itself, citing Brown University’s Corey Brettschneider and George Washington University’s Mary Anne Franks as voices arguing the Constitution can become a danger when used to entrench power. He also pointed to a New York Times column that warned against “Constitution worship” and warned that Americans have long believed the document could save them, while a new chorus contends they must be saved from it. Turley argued that outside elite circles, many people still trust the founding framework and see the Constitution as a binding covenant among a people who have endured wars, depressions and social change. He referenced his forthcoming book, Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution, to frame the debate as a crisis of faith with real consequences for democracy.

After Colgate, Turley did not return directly to Washington. He traveled to Grand Lake, Colorado, for the town’s Constitution Day address. The mountains framed a scene of civic pride rather than rancor. Turley described a parade down Main Street in which Revolutionary-era garb, flags and a fife-and-drum corps drew families from near and far. Riders on horseback and go-karts rolled by as residents celebrated a shared legal creed. Before the speech, he met three boys dressed in period attire who represented the living history of a nation that still holds the Constitution in esteem. He wrote that the scene offered a striking contrast to the heated rhetoric at Colgate, and that the town’s mood was one of gratitude rather than anger. “There was no rage. No anger. Only gratitude.”

Turley’s broader point is that, while scholars in elite institutions argue about the Constitution’s flaws and even its potential obsolescence, millions of Americans outside those centers continue to see the document as the country’s binding trust. He warned that a prominent academic critique—calling for the rejection or “reclamation” of constitutionalism—can feed a political environment in which anger crowds out perspective. He acknowledged that Klarman’s anger reflects real concern about democracy’s vulnerabilities, but he stressed that many citizens do not share the elite presumption that the framers’ framework is unfit for purpose. The exchange, he wrote, reflects what he calls an age of rage, but he also saw in Grand Lake a reminder that national loyalty to the Constitution persists in communities that gather to celebrate its anniversary.

Two additional images from the national conversation illustrate the tension. In Cambridge and Washington, critics argue that the Constitution preserves power for a select few and can obstruct progress when confronted with inequality. In places like Grand Lake, residents demonstrate the opposite instinct: a community reaffirming faith in a document they see as uniquely American. Turley’s account notes that the nation remains divided in method but united in memory of what the Constitution represents.

The broader discourse around constitutional fidelity versus reform is unlikely to disappear soon. Turley acknowledges the dissonance between elite critique and everyday patriotism, and he cautions against assuming that disrespect for the document equates to disloyalty to the country. He writes that the American project has always relied on both rigorous debate about constitutional design and widespread public reverence for the founding covenant. He notes that the Constitution’s longevity—surviving wars, economic upheavals and social unrest for more than two centuries—owes at least as much to the stubborn faith of ordinary people as to the brilliance of its framers. And he suggests that the nation’s health may hinge on restoring a sense that the Constitution remains a living covenant, not a relic of a bygone era.

As Turley put it during his field reporting from Grand Lake, the country is still “sharing” the Constitution, a phrase that captured the spirit of a republic that continues to test itself by the same document that helped forge it. He closed with a reminder that, beyond the headlines and the arguments in academia, millions of Americans remain committed to the idea that the Constitution is not merely words on paper but a covenant that binds a people together. The debate continues, with both sides vying to define what the Constitution should mean for the republic in the 21st century.

Turley’s column closes by tying personal experience to a national claim: that Americans who still gather in small towns, schools and public forums to celebrate the Constitution embody the document’s enduring relevance even as critics push for reform. The piece also notes that, for some scholars, the debate signals a deeper, ongoing crisis of faith in the American constitutional project—one that will shape politics, law and civic life for years to come. In Turley’s view, acknowledging that feverish rhetoric exists does not absolve the nation from grappling with the Constitution’s flaws; it underscores the importance of sustaining a broad, democratic conversation about how best to preserve the document’s promise while confronting its imperfections. The discussion, he implies, is a test of whether Americans can sustain both critique and faith at once. The conversation continues, and with it, the nation’s ongoing effort to live up to the Constitution’s founding promise.