32504

SoSe 20: On the constitutional crisis

Michael Oswald

Kommentar

ONLINE COURSE."The American political system is under stress. There seems to be a general disregard for the norms of checks and balances and separate powers, growing bureaucratic partisanship combined with legislative incapacity and one-sided action. It is hard to conclude anything other than the American republic is in the midst of a constitutional crisis. In the conventional sense of the phrase, this means at least a few core constitutional mechanisms are either ignored or flagrantly transgressed without penalty thereby debasing its integrity and threatening its usefulness as a backstop to the political will of those who wish to pursue private interests without regard for public purpose. Partisan rage and media embellishment within insulated communication-circles has finally broke out of whatever seemed to contain it before and is now threatening the core elements of this republican democracy. This is not the first such episode in the American experience. However, at this moment, it is hard to ignore the fact that reliable norms that provide the ballast to the system are denuded and without credulity or value. Little seems beyond the pale when it comes to pursuing partisan interests in the current American political milieu generating what many see as profound disruptions to the principles which have guided and supported the American constitutional process and consequently injecting uncertainty and robust partisan sorting." Schließen