The Big Answer

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The Amazon blurb says that American politics grows embittered because it is increasingly torn between two rival constitutions, two opposed cultures, two contrary ways of life. American conservatives rally around the founders’ Constitution, as amended and as grounded in the natural and divine rights and duties of the Declaration of Independence.

American conservatives rally around the founders’ Constitution

American liberals herald their “living Constitution,” a term that implies that the original is dead or superseded, and that the fundamental political imperative is constant change or transformation (as President Obama called it) toward a more and more perfect social democracy ruled by a Woke elite.

American liberals would love to flush the Constitution, which they won't need in a socialist utopia ruled by a Woke elite

Crisis of the Two Constitutions: The Rise, Decline, and Recovery of American Greatness details how we got to and what is at stake in our increasingly divided America. It takes controversial stands on matters political and scholarly, describing the political genius of America’s founders and their efforts to shape future generations through a constitutional culture that included immigration, citizenship, and educational policies.

From Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump, what have conservatives learned and where should they go from here?

Then it turns to the attempted progressive refounding of America, tracing its accelerating radicalism from the New Deal to the 1960s’ New Left to today’s unhappy campus nihilists. Finally, the volume appraises American conservatives’ efforts, so far unavailing despite many famous victories, to revive the founders’ Constitution and moral common sense. From Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump, what have conservatives learned and where should they go from here?

From Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump, what have conservatives learned and where should they go from here?

Along the way, Charles R. Kesler argues with critics on the left and right, and refutes fashionable doctrines including relativism, multiculturalism, critical race theory, and radical traditionalism, providing in effect a one-volume guide to the increasingly influential Claremont school of conservative thought by one of its most engaged, and engaging, thinkers.

Liberal adding yet another progressive change to the Founders’ constitution

“Charles Kesler is one of America’s foremost conservative intellectuals, and in this hard-hitting, thought-provoking but witty analysis of the United States’ present discontents he reminds us why. His laser-like pinpointing of the profound dichotomy between the Founders’ constitution and the Progressivists’ constitution explains much of what ails America today, but it also provides the key to the way out, when people recognize how profoundly superior the former is to the latter.”—Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny

Despite its conceits of bow-tied eccentricity and rugged individualism, American conservatism too often traffics in lockstep groupthink: Never Trumpers mechanically affirm the idol of Reagan while MAGA boosters indiscriminately applaud Trump’s celebrity

“Despite its conceits of bow-tied eccentricity and rugged individualism, American conservatism too often traffics in lockstep groupthink: Never Trumpers mechanically affirm the idol of Reagan while MAGA boosters indiscriminately applaud Trump’s celebrity. What these bitterly opposed factions share is a disregard for the substance of the problems we face — a candid acknowledgment of which was the key achievement of Trump’s revolutionary 2016 campaign. Charles Kesler is one of the few conservatives to transcend the factionalism that distracts us from our problems. He ably connects the legacy of conservative thought to the situation of the present, and he does it with wit and good cheer. This volume is an essential corrective for our desperately distracted time.”—Peter Thiel, entrepreneur, investor, and author of Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

While MAGA boosters indiscriminately applaud Trump’s celebrity, Never Trumpers suspected MTGA might be closer to the truth

“Almost any one of the thousands of paragraphs herein could be the subject of a three-hour seminar that would seem to pass in an instant. The book traces an elegant arc beginning with the deepest, most erudite Constitutional philosophy and ending with brilliant, novel, and profound political analysis. All the while, it is historically authoritative, cool, balanced, and witty. Herein you will find striking revelations about the deepest and most complicated roots of the American experiment, as well as masterful, often magisterial, historical and contemporary political analysis. No one loves the Constitution more than Charles Kesler, except perhaps James Madison.” —Mark Helprin

No one loves the Constitution more than Charles Kesler, except perhaps James Madison

Here the Leftist's tools in the intelligence community burn the Constitution

Charles R. Kesler is editor of the Claremont Review of Books and a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute. He is the Dengler-Dykema Distinguished Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College, the author of I Am the Change: Barack Obama and the Crisis of Liberalism, and the coeditor, with William F. Buckley, Jr., of Keeping the Tablets: Modern American Conservative Thought. His edition of The Federalist Papers is the best-selling one in the country. In 2017, Politico magazine named Kesler to its annual Politico 50 list of “the key thinkers, doers, and visionaries who are reshaping American politics and policy,” and in 2018 the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation awarded him a Bradley Prize.

As Kesler writes, "If anti-black racism is in our national DNA, however, those promises [made by the Declaration of Independence and cited by reverend Martin Luther King] were hypocritical at best. Still more depressing is the implication of today’s woke wisdom that there is very little Americans can do about racism (the new original sin) even if we wanted to.

Today’s woke wisdom says that there is very little Americans can do about racism (the new original sin) even if we wanted to, except feel guilty and hate themselves and their evil racist souls—and of course, buy the ludicrous radical leftist's narrative hook, line, and sinker.

Here the PC police erases the slightest tinge of racism found in anything, even though this PC obsessiveness finds mostly racism being projected onto nonracist material

"You can’t change your DNA. At least you can’t make the wholesale change that would be needed to produce a new, non-racist American. Hence the only cure is “anti-racism,” the never-ending repression of never-ending racism, the proscription of offensive words, sentiments, opinions, and people, which exchanges the old for a new hypocrisy. This is the continuing moral revolution that the progressive Left, in its latest version, is bringing to America. [uninvited]

'Anti-racism,' the never-ending repression of never-ending racism, by such methods as college indoctrination: here kids learn that evil whites are victimizers and blacks are victims

"But it is only the latest version. Two years ago it was the #MeToo movement that seized Brett Kavanaugh, then a Supreme Court nominee, in its coils, insisting on a new, postmodern test of truth: “Believe the woman.” “Her truth,” the protestors proclaimed, is stronger than any objective or disinterested truth that might emerge from an adversarial process weighing evidence and testimony. Two years before that, the new revolutionary creed was socialism — “democratic socialism,” as updated by Bernie Sanders, who had no doubt learned a lot about it in his travels to Cuba, Nicaragua, and the Soviet Union.

Several years ago the new revolutionary creed was socialism — “democratic socialism,” as updated by Bernie Sanders, who had no doubt learned a lot about it in his travels to Cuba, Nicaragua, and the Soviet Union

This book explains why America may be leaving the world of normal politics and entering the dangerous world of regime politics — in which our political loyalties diverge more and more, as they did in the 1850s, between two contrary visions of what constitutes the country. Only one vision is based on the Founders’ Constitution."

Is shearing a sheep the same as 'taking care' of it? Once in power, the liberal elites take care of themselves more than the flocks under their 'care'

Of course, the other vision is based on the power of the administrative state, and its role as caretaker of an ignorant public. It's the bargain of "you citizens give us power and we will reward you by taking care of you." As we've seen, once in power the liberal elites take care of themselves more than the flocks under their "care"—the sheeple.

The liberals and conservatives have very different visions of the country. The country is so polarized and divided that it's like two countries. The liberals and conservatives have different values, interests, priorities, and attitudes. They are full of hostility toward one another, with the liberals basically outshouting, gagging, and censoring the conservatives.

The liberals and conservatives have different values, interests, priorities, and attitudes. They are full of hostility toward one another, with the liberals basically outshouting, gagging, and censoring the conservatives

This violates the free speech rights of conservatives. Liberals do not believe conservatives should have these rights because conservatives are evil racists, say the liberals (even though they are not). They want the liberals to rule and conservatives to shut up and do as they're told. Liberals no longer discuss ideas with conservatives because liberals are infinitely positive that they have all the right answers and conservative ideas are not worth hearing, tainted as they are with evil racism and white supremacy. This is lying, fraudulent hypocrisy, of course, and they know it, since from 1850 until now, it is the Democrats, not conservatives, who have manifested 99% of the evil racism and white supremacy in this country, including their ties to the Civil War, Jim Crow and the KKK.

From 1850 until now, it is the Democrats, not conservatives, who have manifested 99% of the evil racism and white supremacy in this country, including their ties to Jim Crow and the KKK

Of course, this "conservatives are full of evil racism and white supremacy" horse puckey is nonsense, but liberals are so sure of their ideas that no discussions would be helpful as "conservative ideas are not worth hearing."

Will there be a civil war? It would be awkward, since the states all contain mixtures of liberals and conservatives, blue and red. The liberals want to take the guns away fron the conservatives so they cannot defend themselves. But it is easy to see where the public sentiment lies. Gun sales are through the roof.

Gun sales are through the roof

Kyle Rittenhouse was found not guilty by all 12 people in a jury after he killed a couple of people who were trying to "get him" in a protest riot. Kyle defended himself, which is his right, according to the Constitution. The liberals want us to believe that we should have no such rights and if someone tries to kill us, we should let them. Perhaps the liberal wackos should let them, while the conservative patriots protect themselves.

The crisis America faces is between two incompatible visions of the future, and a nation sharply divided between them—it's leading toward civil war

However, it's been demonstrated many times that a liberal whose life is threatened will defend himself in any way possible. So to analyze this hypocrisy, we see that liberals believe THEY should be allowed to defend themselves, but conservatives like Kyle Rittenhouse should not. A country this divided, like before the Civil War, is a powder keg—not stable at all. What about devolution to keep the peace?

The map below shows where the liberals and conservatives are in their 3 countries if the USA devolved into three, but it is BEFORE the liberals in New Mexico and Colorado move east or west, so these two states are initially part of West Liberal-land—BEFORE their move. The reason it would not stay like this is because they would be a liberal island in Bubba-land, surrounded by the conservative hordes. How would YOU like to be surrounded by Bubbas? So they'd move west or east and the Blue island would disappear, and the heartland would be all Red. (Remember to avoid pissing off the citizens of Bubba-land: rumor has it they have a strong affinity for weapons and violence!)

U.S. Devolved Into Three Countries

As Kesler sees it, refreshing federalism so the states could decide issues locally would help a lot. Let Utah have strict abortion laws and New York permissive ones. Why argue about it nationally? Kesler doubts we want to try civil war again, not just because the bloodshed in a 330-million-person country would be awful, and once the war was over, China and/or Russia would be certain to want to pick up the pieces and take us over.

"American liberals herald their “living Constitution,” a term that implies the original is dead or superseded, and that the fundamental political imperative is constant change or “transformation” (as President Obama called it) toward a more and more perfect social democracy, made possible by man’s increasingly god-like control of his own moral evolution." (Source: Crisis of the Two Constitutions, claremont.org)

"Progressing toward a more perfect social democracy, made possible by man’s increasingly god-like control of his own moral evolution" may be what liberals tell each other, but intensely analyzing the "moral evolution" they have been displaying this century leads one to the inescapable conclusion that this god-like moral evolution was in their own minds only. The actual morals displayed were malignant at best.

Kesler's Crisis of the Two Constitutions: The Rise, Decline, and Recovery of American Greatness is the last word on American politics growing dangerously embittered because it is increasingly torn between two rival constitutions, two opposed cultures, two contrary ways of life. American conservatives rally around the founders’ Constitution, while liberals rally around unrealistic socialist dreams of a utopia of equality based on woke nonsense like critical race theory, multiculturalism, relativism, and open borders. The Chinese and Russians are smiling at these Marxist fantasies, since if they are pursued, we'll play right into their hands.