To Engage in Civic Life, First Put Down Your Phone

In the run-up to the 250^th anniversary of America’s independence, Tufts alumna Jill Lepore, J87, sees her latest book, We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution, as a tool for injecting the origins and intent of the founding documents into the current, highly politicized conversation around the country’s inception. And part of that conversation, she argues, should be the role Americans can have in interpreting and improving their Constitution, which has not been amended since 1971. 

“We’re in a moment … where the Supreme Court has a great deal of power,” Lepore said. “And people don’t think about what other forms of power there are with regard to constitutional interpretations. The book I wanted to write was one that revealed the long history and tradition of popular sovereignty over the Constitution.”

Lepore, a Harvard history professor and staff writer for The New Yorker, explained that many attempts to reform the constitution have been overlooked by the court. For example, up to 200 constitutional conventions were held by Black men in the late 1800s, with women and Native nations leading similar conferences. All were separate from state constitutional conventions where participation was limited to white men. 

“All the things that people have wanted and tried to do all along is also the history of the Constitution, and it is largely invisible to us,” she said. “If you think of those meetings as constitutional aspirations, then you can, as carefully as possible, come up with an approximation of a history of the American popular will.” 

Lepore believes that moving forward, amending the Constitution must effectively be an in-person event, brought about by the work of citizens who actively seek change. 

The latest Solomont Speaker to be hosted by the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life, Lepore sat with Tufts history lecturer Paul Polgar and took questions from the audience at the Cabot Intercultural Center on March 30. Topics ranged from enshrining AI guardrails in the Constitution to the anti-democratic effects of social media. Here are some takeaways from the talk. 

Make your voice heard at the local level. 

For maximum effect as a concerned citizen, “I would look at local politics,” Lepore said. “The more local, the better. The nationalization of politics has been terrible for communities. That’s partly a function of the destruction of the newspaper, which was the willful act of social media companies. We have to rebuild civic life from the town and neighborhood up. That’s where I would look to for success.”

Think beyond the courts.

“It would be cool to have a federal constitutional convention, but not tomorrow,” said Lepore, noting that one has yet to happen in modern U.S. politics. “You need to be training for that marathon for a good year. You’ve got to begin by getting out of bed, and you absolutely have to throw your phone out of the window. We can’t do anything democratically without addressing social media,” where, Lepore said, “the information is impoverished.”

Technology can still work to our advantage. 

Under President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s, the federal government produced a 26-week radio series for CBS to combat Americans’ growing penchant for fascism. “It’s an interesting counterfactual, where the cutting-edge technology of communication, which was the radio, was really, really effective at defending democracy.”

AI may be the catalyst for future amendments.

“AI might put enough pressure on a set of political arrangements that we are willing to submit to a constitutional convention,” said Lepore, addressing widespread concerns over how best to regulate artificial intelligence. “In the way that the framers of the Constitution like Alexander Hamilton would have used the kind of Silicon Valley language [declaring it] a new era for humanity, we’re in that same ‘ahh’ kind of moment.”

Sometimes you need a deadline.

Barring immediate change, Lepore spoke of “sunrise amendments,” which are meant to take effect after a significant time delay. “This is one way to abolish the Electoral College. Most Americans hate the Electoral College, they just like it if, in the near term, it advances their party. But if you could have an amendment that said, ‘We’ll abolish the Electoral College as of 2060,’ you could maybe get that thing through. Similarly with campaign finance [reform], you don’t know whether it would advantage or disadvantage your political interest, but if you think it’s for the good of the country and future generations, that’s a path toward amending the Constitution.”