Among the 22 essays were thoughts from Congressman Jamie Raskin, activist Jane Fonda, economist Robert Reich, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, and other experts in their fields.  Here are a few quotes excerpted from various essays:

 

“You will hear no more disorienting or self-defeating a platitude uttered on Capitol Hill in this 250th year of the American journey, by politicians of either party, than the sixth-grade dogma that America has ‘three co-equal branches of government.’  That co-equal thing is convected nonsense.  … When used repetitively by judges, legislators, or pundits to characterize the relationship of Congress to the president and the Supreme Court, the co-equal trope first obscures and then surrenders the essential primacy of Congress as established and ordained in the first article of the Constitution.”  Congressman Jamie Raskin, p. 33-34.

 

“Trump’s attack on [Howard] Zinn (author of A People’s History of the United States) however, revealed something that the president and his minions share with the historian they so decried:  a fundamental belief that history written from the point of view of social movements holds the potential to empower the powerless.” Dave Zirin, p. 39.

 

“It was we, the people; not we the white male citizens,” a quote by Susan B. Anthony, in an article entitled Our Revolution, by Richard Kreitner.  p. 43.

 

“[Martin Luther] King’s most famous formulation came at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.  ‘When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence,’ he declared from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, ‘they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir … America has defaulted on this promissory note.’”  Richard Kreitner, p.45.

 

“In 1973, when the Black Panther leader Huey P. Newton appeared on William F. Buckley, Jr.’s Firing Line program, he stopped the blustery host in his tracks with a question.  ‘During the Revolution of 1776,’ Newton asked, ‘which side would you have been on?’”  Richard Kreitner, p. 45.

 

“The core failure of our Constitution is that it is based on individual political and civil rights, with no mention of economic or social rights.  It’s based on what we call ‘negative rights’:  things that the government cannot do to its citizens.  What’s missing is a robust conception of ‘positive rights’:  the things the government must do for its citizens.  Indeed, there have been efforts, led by the Supreme Court, to ‘calcify’ the Constitution as a ‘charter of negative liberties’ and nothing more.  It’s a mistake that we keep making.”  Elie Mystal, p. 47.

 

“Importantly, the Supreme Court was created to be a final check ‘on democratic government by ensuring that popular majorities cannot pass laws that harm and/or take undue advantage of unpopular minorities.’  So why has it done its job so poorly?”  Michele Goodwin, p. 51.

 

“Two and a half centuries after establishing a government by and for ‘we the people’, the country is still fighting over who gets to be considered part of ‘we.’  As illustrated through the relentless persecution of people presumed to be immigrants, transgender people, and other vulnerable communities, the current government is actively working to limit ‘the people’ entitled to legal protections to a privileged subset, predominantly wealthy white men who are cisgender, heterosexual, and loyal to the current administration.”  Madiba K. Dennie, p. 53.

 

“Almost every legal path to citizenship that once existed for immigrants like me has been ended.”  Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, p. 58.

 

“Every important victory in the history of this country—and of this world—has been launched by people standing up and saying no, in whatever way made sense in that moment.  Think about the Boston Tea Party, about teenagers sitting down at lunch counters, about Gandhi’s struggle to liberate India.  They all depended on civil disobedience.  And I still protest, because now it’s existential, particularly with a climate crisis that could destroy us.” Jane Fonda, p. 62.

 

The Nation magazine has always been an irreverent thorn-in-the-side publication since its founding shortly after the Civil War by a group of abolitionists, and still describes itself as a “flagship of the left.”  But in a news cycle dominated by the actions of a barge of the right, articles like those alluded to above give a different perspective and plenty of food—a veritable feast—for thought.