The Constitution

The Tea Party has brought the Constitution to the forefront of American politics. If you're not familiar with this topic, here are some links.

There are many ways I can go with this blog post, but I'm going to focus on the implications, the impact, the power of bringing the word "Constitution" into the fray.

The Constitution is a powerful concept. Constitutionality is the basis on which laws are judged. The Constitution is what our government is based on. Students learn about the Constitution in school. And now, political debate serves to further the prominence of the Constitution.

From what I have seen, although many people know of the Constitution and believe the Constitution to be significant and important, not many people know what is actually written in the Constitution. Many only know of couple of the articles in the Bill of Rights, and do not know the exact wording of said articles. With the internet, this isn't such a problem, since all this information can be looked up. However, I have found that many people do not bother to even look up said information.

So here we have this concept that many people believe to be important and powerful, which many people do not understand. The situation is just oozing with exploitative potential.

Tea Party candidates bring up the idea that the Constitution is on their side, and try to win support via their Constitutional legitimacy. In case you were about to write off the Tea Party as a joke and that nobody would believe their arguments, note that the Tea Party has more positive than negative associations, according to the Global Language Monitor. It is entirely possible that their Constitutionality argument may prove to be somewhat effective.

The kicker? The Constitution is not a very specific mandate on how Americans should run their nation; the founding fathers did not know what the world would be like in 2010. The Constitution is and was meant to be a guideline for how to run our nation. As a result, it leaves much room for interpretation. As a result, their interpretations of the Constitution may not be "wrong." (although the sources I linked to may, in fact, say that their interpretations are wrong.) So besides the fact that the Constitution is powerful and well-known, and besides the fact that many people do not actually know what is written in the Constitution, the Constitution is ambiguous enough that many different but perfectly legitimate arguments can be made using the Constitution in order to support very differing or or even radical points of view. Triple whammy. At the same time, opposition to the Tea Party can use these same aspects of the Constitution to make solid counterarguments. But the Tea Party brought up the issue first. Will that give the Tea Party authority and legitimacy on the topic of the Constitution in the eyes of Americans?