以为宪法会救我们？再想想吧
——对民主的颠覆是宪法作者的明确意向
作者:Megan Day and Bhaskar Sunkara
许多进步人士认为宪法是对特朗普的防御。但实际上我们的宪法是为像他这样的有钱商人而制定的。
让我们来看一些事实及数据：尽管他比希拉里·克林顿赢得的选票少了三百万，但最终还是唐纳德·特朗普入主白宫。参议院是美国最强大的立法机构，它向怀俄明州的579315居民提供的代表人数却与拥有39536653居民的加利福尼亚州相同。在哥伦比亚特区、波多黎各和其他很多美国领土上，公民的主要投票权被剥夺。美国政府的架构是由十八世纪的宪法文本确立的，几乎是不可能改变的。
这些弊病不是偶然发生的，颠覆民主是宪法制定者的明确意图。在《联邦党人10号》中，詹姆斯·麦迪逊写道：“民主永远充满动荡和争斗的景象”，它与财产私有者的权利是不相容的。他帮助创立的拜占庭宪法，是一个用于统治人民的政府体制的基础，而不是一个实现大众自治的工具。
左翼作家如《雅各宾》（一本左翼杂志）的Seth Ackerman和记者Daniel Lazare长期以来一直认为宪法改革需要提上议事日程。甚至像《VOX》（《声音》）的Matthew Yglesias这样的自由主义者也担心当前的治理体制将走向崩溃。
在许多进步人士都以为宪法是阻止出现白宫独裁者的唯一一道防线的情况下，上述提到的这些观点就显得尤为至关重要。然而，无论总统是否知道，宪法长期以来一直被保守派商业精英们尊为至宝，其原因在于宪法赋予了他们权力使他们有能力阻挡为满足劳动人民利益而进行的财富再分配和建立新的社会保障。这就是为什么我们是唯一没有诸如全民医疗保障和带薪产假的发达国家。在维护和扩大《人权法案》对个人自由的不完全保障的同时，我们需要开始努力建立一个真正代表美国人民的新的政治制度。我们的构想是应该建立一个强大的联邦政府和一个按比例选出的唯一立法机构。实现这一愿景的中间步骤有废除阻挠议案通过、建立对选举的联邦控制、通过全民公投制定一个更简单的方法来修改宪法。
这种变革会有多困难呢？正如阿克曼先生提醒我们的那样，虽然宪法修订在大多数国家都是简单可行的，“美国宪法的修正案则要求不少于三十九个不同立法机构的同意，这大约包括了七十八个独立选出的议事厅（部门）。”
但这是一个值得面对的问题。只要我们认为我们的宪法是神圣的文件，而不是过时的遗物，我们将不得不应对它反民主的后果。
原载《纽约时报》２０１８年８月９日；上海财大马院陆夏副教授翻译
英文原文：
Think the Constitution Will Save Us? Think Again
The subversion of democracy was the explicit intent of the framers.
By Meagan Day and BhaskarSunkara
Ms. Day is a staff writer at Jacobin, where Mr. Sunkara is editor.
Aug. 9, 2018
Many progressives view the Constitution as a defense against Trump. But it was made for rich businessmen like him.CreditCharlesMostoller for The New York Times
Consider a few facts: Donald Trump is in the White House, despite winning almost three million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton. The Senate, the country’s most powerful legislative chamber, grants the same representation to Wyoming’s 579,315 residents as it does to 39,536,653 Californians. Key voting rights are denied to citizens in the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and other United States territories. The American government is structured by an 18th-century text that is almost impossible to change.
These ills didn’t come about by accident; the subversion of democracy was the explicit intent of the Constitution’s framers. For James Madison, writing in Federalist No. 10, “Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention” incompatible with the rights of property owners. The byzantine Constitution he helped create serves as the foundation for a system of government that rules over people, rather than an evolving tool for popular self-government.
Writers on the left such as Jacobin’s Seth Ackerman and the journalist Daniel Lazare have long argued that constitutional reform needs to be on the agenda. Even some liberals like Vox’s Matthew Yglesias rightly worry that the current system of governance is headed toward collapse.
These perspectives are vital at a time when many progressives regard the Constitution as our only line of defense against a would-be autocrat in the White House. Yet whether or not the president knows it, the Constitution has long been venerated by conservative business elites like himself on the grounds that it hands them the power to fend off attempts to redistribute wealth and create new social guarantees in the interest of working people. There’s a reason we’re the only developed country without guarantees such as universal health care and paid maternity leave. While preserving and expanding the Bill of Rights’s incomplete safeguards of individual freedoms, we need to start working toward the establishment of a new political system that truly represents Americans. Our ideal should be a strong federal government powered by a proportionally elected unicameral legislature. But intermediary steps toward that vision can be taken by abolishing the filibuster, establishing federal control over elections and developing a simpler way to amend the Constitution through national referendum.
How hard would change be? As Mr. Ackerman reminds us, while constitutional change is straightforward and feasible in most countries, “an amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires the consent of no less than thirty-nine different legislatures comprising roughly seventy-eight separately elected chambers.”
But it’s a problem worth confronting. As long as we think of our Constitution as a sacred document, instead of an outdated relic, we’ll have to deal with its anti-democratic consequences.
This article is part of the Opinion Today newsletter. David Leonhardt, the newsletter’s author, is on a break until Aug. 27. While he’s gone, several outside writers are taking his place. This week’s authors are Meagan Day, a writer for the socialist magazine Jacobin, and BhaskarSunkara, the magazine’s editor. You can sign up here to receive the newsletter each weekday.