The Trump Presidency, the Racial Realignment, and the Future of Constitutional Norms

Document Type

Book Section

Publication Date

10-2022

ISBN

9781009246835

DOI

10.1017/9781009246811.009

Abstract

The central claim of this chapter is that racial politics, stemming from the racial realignment between the Democratic and Republican Parties that began much earlier than many scholars appreciate, has played a critically important and yet undernoticed role in the breakdown of constitutional norms in recent decades. An increasing number of American legal scholars are writing about the importance of constitutional norms, also sometimes called constitutional conventions. Such norms are not legal in status, but they impose obligations of compliance on government officials that can be as great as legal obligations – they guide and constrain how officials “exercise political discretion.” Although constitutional norms are not required by the letter of the US Constitution, they are appropriately denominated “constitutional” because they help vindicate the spirit – or the purposes – of the Constitution. To violate a constitutional norm without sufficient public-regarding justification is not unconstitutional, but it “is anticonstitutional.” Constitutional norms were placed under great pressure during the presidency of Donald J. Trump.

First Page

169

Last Page

202

Num Pages

34

Series

Comparative Constitutional Law and Policy

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Editor

Richard Albert, Ryan C. Williams, & Yaniv Roznai

Book Title

Amending America's Unwritten Constitution

Link to Full Text
Buy This Book

SSRN

Share

COinS