![handle is hein.journals/mlro117 and id is 1 raw text is:
THE REPUBLIC IN LONG-TERM PERSPECTIVE
Richard Primus*
INTRODUCTION
Every system of government eventually passes away. That's a feature of
the human condition. The United States has been an unusually stable polity
by the standards of world civilizations, and for that stability Americans
should be deeply grateful. But no nation is exempt from the basic forces of
history. It is not reasonable to think that the constitutional republic we know
will last forever. The question is when it will meet its end-in our lifetimes,
or in our grandchildren's, or centuries later. Given the stable conditions that
living Americans were socialized to expect, the dominant intuition is
probably something like A very long time from now, long enough that we
can't imagine what life will be like then. That was my own confident view
until recently, and it may still turn out to be right. But the recognition that
no system of government lasts forever should make us realize that this one,
too, will one day run its course. Once we face that reality, we can perhaps
think with open minds about the possibility that the end will come sooner
than we expected.
Since President Trump was elected, some serious observers have
concluded that the American Republic is in serious peril.1 Others have
thought that warnings about the possible fall of the Republic are exaggerated
rhetoric.2 The difference between those perspectives is partly a matter of
people's having different understandings of the Trump Administration. But
it is also partly a function of different views, usually unarticulated, about
* Theodore J. St. Antoine Collegiate Professor, The University of Michigan Law
School. Thanks to Gary Bass, Joey Fishkin, Jamal Greene, Emily Hantverk, Don Herzog, and
Orin Kerr.
1. See, e.g., STEVEN LEVITSKY & DANIEL ZIBLATT, How DEMOCRACIES DIE (2018);
YASCHA MOUNK, THE PEOPLE V. DEMOCRACY: WHY OUR FREEDOM IS IN DANGER AND HOW
TO SAVE IT (2018).
2. See Eric Liu, How Donald Trump Is Reviving American Democracy, ATLANTIC (Mar.
8, 2017), https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/how-donald-trump-is-
reviving-our-democracy/518928/ [https://perma.cc/84BA-7C4P].
1](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/mlro117&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
What Is HeinOnline?
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most