Living Constitutionally: A.J. Jacobs
July 18th, 2024
”If we're apathetic or we're nihilistic, or cynical, then that's when we'll slide into autocracy.”
A.J. Jacobs is a journalist and author. His most recent book is The Year of Living Constitutionally: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Constitution's Original Meaning. We discuss how the Founding Fathers prized humility, experimentation, and a willingness to change their own minds.
The heart of our democracy is for the community to come together and cooperate. One example is to advocate for democratic reforms, which are nonpartisan. Being apathetic or cynical helps the slide into autocracy. Resisting the allure of quick, hot takes and slower thinking are also crucial to democracy. The founding fathers were deeply invested in balance, especially when it comes to the power of a president being balanced by Congress. A.J. reminds us that everyday citizens can control whether the sun is rising or setting on democracy.
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Credits:
Host: Mila Atmos
Guest: A.J. Jacobs
Executive Producer: Mila Atmos
Producer: Zack Travis
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AJ Jacobs Transcript
Mila Atmos: [00:00:00] Thanks to Shopify for supporting Future Hindsight. Shopify is a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere, giving entrepreneurs like us the resources once reserved for big business. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com/hopeful. All lowercase.
Mila Atmos: [00:00:22] Welcome to Future Hindsight, a podcast that takes big ideas about civic life and democracy and turns them into action items for you and me. I'm Mila Atmos.
It's 2024 and the future of America is in your hands. Democracy is not a spectator sport, so we're here to bring you an independent perspective about the election this year and empower you to change the status quo. Democracy is also a practice, something that we do. And as we've heard more than once. Not something you put in a jar on a shelf. One of our favorite things on the show is to talk to people who jump in and participate in the daily ritual of democracy.
And today, we're in for a treat because our guest embarked on discovering how our Founding Fathers lived democratically. It will be a discussion about everyday citizenship in real life. Think of it as democracy in the wild.
We're joined by A.J. Jacobs, author of The Year of Living Constitutionally: One Man's Humble Quest to follow the Constitution's Original Meaning.
Welcome, A.J., thank you for joining us.
A.J. Jacobs: [00:01:40] Well, thank you. Thank you Mila. Thank you for all you're doing to help save democracy. Really. It's great work.
Mila Atmos: [00:01:47] Thank you. So your book reads like a manual on 18th century living, and I'm a fan of your enthusiasm for embracing the oddities of that time. The purpose, as per your subtitle, is one man's humble quest to follow the Constitution's original meaning. So after your year of living constitutionally, how would you describe or define the original meaning of the Constitution?
A.J. Jacobs: [00:02:15] Well, just to back up on why I did this, and then I'll tell you some of the results I had. It was a couple of years ago, and I realized I knew shockingly little about the Constitution. I knew the, the preamble, "we the people." But I never read it from start to finish. And actually, neither has the majority of Americans according to polls. But every day I would read another article about how this 230 year old document was having a huge impact on every part of my life, millions of Americans. So I thought, I need to understand what this document is about. The way I like to do it as an author is I like to dive in and immerse myself and live it. It's what I did with the Bible for a book I wrote called The Year of Living Biblically
, where I followed all the rules and I had ten commandments. I had a huge beard, I wore a robe. So I sort of like to do this method-writing, And that's what I decided to try to figure out how to understand the Constitution by trying to get in the minds of the Founding Fathers and trying to live the original meaning using the technology of the time. So I, you know, walking the walk and talking the talk and carrying the musket and wearing the tricorn hat and writing with a quill. And the idea was hopefully at the end, I would have a better understanding of our Constitution and how to interpret it, and hopefully how to keep democracy going. And it was an amazing year. It was a weird year, but it was, it was really enlightening.Mila Atmos: [00:03:56] I thought that the experiment was wonderful. The stories that you tell and the things that you've discovered were really marvelous. And my favorite part really is that you were basically breathing and living democracy, was top of mind every day, which is something that I hope most Americans embrace eventually, hopefully sooner rather than later. That's one of the reasons I do this podcast, is to inspire people to think democratically, you know, have this as part of their, I call it decision tree, in their daily lives. Even when you're going to the grocery store, you know. Or the kind of decisions that you make and keeping the public good in mind. What is the original meaning now that you've lived it?
A.J. Jacobs: [00:04:34] Well, the original meaning, according to the many scholars I talked to and all the research I did and all the living, the original meaning is quite different than the way we see the Constitution today. So there were many surprising parts. For instance, the one you just mentioned, their conception of rights in the 18th century was quite different than ours. Rights were not absolute trump cards and
conversation stoppers. Instead, you had natural rights. But once you entered into society, you also had to balance those rights against the common good, which was why even the free speech was much more constrained back then. States had blasphemy laws and there were laws against cursing, and John Adams had the Sedition Acts. I am a fan of much broader free speech than was available in the 1790s, but it is interesting to see how different life was. And so it's also a bit of a cautionary tale when we say, let's go back to the original meaning. My feeling is, yes, let's look at the original meaning. That is crucial. But also let's balance it with other considerations like the consequences and and what the Supreme Court has said in the past decades. Stare decisis is the name. And it gave me a much more balanced view of how we should interpret the Constitution. And balance is a very American Founding Fathers idea. Balance of powers, for instance.
Mila Atmos: [00:06:13] Yeah, yeah. Well, let's talk about that because of course, there's a debate about originalism and living constitutionalism. And just now you're talking about balance. So I know that between these two strands of extremes, there are lots of varieties. You know, there's not just one kind of originalism and one kind of living constitutionalism. But I'm really curious about is, when you were living constitutionally, how did these interpretations work in practice? Did it give you a sense of like, right, this is a consistently practical idea that we can live every day. Like, is it more originalism? Is it more living constitutionalism? Is it somewhere in between? What did you find?
A.J. Jacobs: [00:06:58] Well, it's a great question, and it was one of the main themes of my book, I'm sure your listeners know, mostly, but originalism says that the original meaning of the Constitution at the time it was ratified is the most important thing when interpreting the Constitution. Living constitutionalism says no. We have to take into account the original meaning, but we have to look at the consequences. And just to give you an example. The 14th amendment was ratified in the 1860s, and the Ratifiers were not thinking when they said equal protection under the law. They were not thinking of gay marriage. A true hardcore originalist like Clarence Thomas would say, the 14th amendment has nothing to say about gay marriage or even gender equality, because they were not thinking about that when they signed it, as opposed to a living constitutionalist who would say, actually, no. The meaning has to evolve as society evolves. Now, I sort of took originalism to its extreme and only used the technology of the time, which is farther than any originalist would do. I just wanted to see if you are the
strictest originalist you can ever imagine, then what would that look like? For my Second Amendment rights, I carried a musket because that was the gun at the time the Second Amendment was ratified and the First Amendment. I swore off social media, and I wrote with a quill pen and handed out pamphlets, because that's the way the First Amendment was expressed. And in the end, I did get a better understanding of originalism and and why you would be an originalist. Because otherwise you say, well, if you got stuck to the text, people can do whatever they want. Judges can rule willy nilly based on their own beliefs, so I understand that. But I also think that it is too constraining and that the world has changed too much, and that we do need more flexibility. To use one metaphor, if you think of the Constitution as a pair of pants with an elastic, it's an elastic pair of pants at the waist. You don't want the elastic to be completely structureless. You need some structure. You need things like the rights and the idea of general welfare equal protection, but you also need it to stretch a little. You don't want the Constitution to be a pair of skinny jeans that will split open as soon as you gain a pound, as soon as society changes a little. So it is a balance.
Mila Atmos: [00:09:43] Yeah. Well said. So we also know that the Constitution is a framework for people who have differing views to have constructive discourse. But it's more than that. So it's also, as you note, a seat of freedom. And Frederick Douglass goes even further. He says that we should think of it as a moral compass. Yeah. Tell us a little bit more about that idea.
A.J. Jacobs: [00:10:06] Yes, I love that idea. As you say, the Constitution contains many things. One, it's a framework for making law rules about how to make rules, and partly about how we have rights, but also a moral compass or in Frederick Douglass words, a promissory note, because it has those wonderful promises in it about the general welfare, liberty, freedom, equal protection, all of these wonderful phrases. However, as Frederick Douglass knew so well, America did not live up to those phrases. So his take was don't burn the Constitution, which is what another abolitionist named William Lloyd Garrison literally did. He said the Constitution is a pact with the devil, and he burned it. He was a showman. He burned it on stage. And at first Frederick Douglass was on his side and said, yeah, it is a pact with the devil. But at some point in the 1850s, Frederick Douglass said, no, let's reframe it and say there are great parts in the Constitution. It's just that America does not live up to them, and that we have to hold America to that promise of equality. It's such a resonant theme that
Martin Luther King talked about the Constitution as a promissory note. Obama gave a wonderful speech about race where he said, the answer to the flaws of the Constitution lie in the Constitution itself, that you have to hold it to its best parts.
Mila Atmos: [00:11:42] Well, so you clearly learned a lot about the Constitution while you're doing this. You read books. You practiced the way that the Founding Fathers practiced democracy. And you just said also earlier that most Americans have not read the Constitution, let alone studied it, you know, spent good time with it. So there are tons and tons of misconceptions. What's your hot take on the Constitution?
A.J. Jacobs: [00:12:11] Well, it's interesting you bring up hot takes because I believe there are many things about the 18th century that are terrible. It was a sexist, racist, homophobic, dirty, smelly, dangerous time. On the other hand, there are aspects of the 18th century that I feel are worth reviving. And one of them is the idea of the Founding fathers that they did not like hot takes. They wanted cold takes. They hated the idea they would hate social media because it's so reactive. You don't have time to think. So I actually wrote most of the book and I wrote my letters with a quill, with actual ink. It changed the way I thought because you couldn't immediately get angry and press send. You had to take out the quill, you had to get out the ink, and you had to think, and then you had to send it off. So I believe that this slower thinking is crucial to democracy. So we've got to resist the allure that Silicon Valley has given us of these quick, hot takes. I guess that is one of my hot takes, is that we should abandon hot takes to save democracy.
Mila Atmos: [00:13:26] What's a big idea that you discovered in your research, living constitutionally, that we should be embracing in this time, aside from cold takes, but something that would really make our democracy more vibrant, a practice from the 18th century?
A.J. Jacobs: [00:13:40] There are several, but one that I truly love, and one of my favorite parts of the whole project was to look at elections in the 1790s, at the start of America. Now, as always, there were horrible things about it. It was restricted to white men, often wealthy white men. It had huge constraints. However, it also had something lovely, which was that for those lucky ones who could vote, it was seen as a celebration. It was the first time in history that a country could have a say in its own leadership.
There was music, there were farmers markets, there was rum punch everywhere and election cakes. There was a huge tradition of baking election cakes. They were made with cloves and figs, so it may not be to our taste, but the idea of celebrating democracy was so meaningful to me that I started a movement. Let's get back the election cake to remind people democracy is sweet. That was sort of the catchphrase: "democracy is sweet." I used Facebook, which was not 18th century. I'm sorry, but I got people in all 50 states to bake election cakes for the 2023 elections in November and hand them out, and it was just so touching because people were so despairing of the state of democracy. And this was just one little positive action that you could take. And it's not going to save democracy alone. We need to fix so much like the way that voters are registered and gerrymandering. But it was still a little action and people went all out. So the Georgia bakers made it with peaches, and the Michigan bakers made it with cherries. Cherries are apparently big in Michigan, and every state participated. And I just got such lovely feedback and it made me gave me hope.
Mila Atmos: [00:15:40] Yeah, that's a great story. I love that you were able to get people to bake cakes in all 50 states. Tell us a little bit more about your interactions of handing out cake near the polling stations.
A.J. Jacobs: [00:15:53] Yes, I live in New York on the Upper West Side, and I had a couple of different cakes. One did have the cloves, and one was actually with the words of the preamble on top of the cake. So it looked like the Constitution. So people were literally eating democracy. Some people who are saying, you know, whatever you're selling, I don't want it. And I said, this is non-partisan. I'm trying to celebrate democracy. And most people, 95% of people, they would take the cake and they would say to me, I've been so depressed about the state of politics, and this is such a nice reminder. I just love that I can't take credit because, you know, it was an idea from the 1700s. I think the idea of making it celebratory is crucial to us restoring our faith in democracy.
Mila Atmos: [00:16:43] Yeah. Totally agree. We're taking a short break, and we'll be back with A.J. in just a moment.
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Mila Atmos: [00:19:33] And now let's return to my conversation with A.J. Jacobs.
So you floated tons of ideas, which is to say, not your own ideas. You you brought all the ideas that you discovered in this project. And so many are so amazing that I had never heard of. But before we get there, you have an idea for a 28th amendment. What's the idea that you have to amend the Constitution right now?
A.J. Jacobs: [00:20:02] Well, this idea again was not mine. It was from the Constitutional Convention. I recommend everyone read the notes James Madison wrote about the convention, because it shows how fluid and flexible and creative and entrepreneurial the Founding Fathers were, and that the system we have now is not something that, you know, in an alternate universe, things could have looked very different if several people had voted just slightly differently. And one of those ideas was that the president should not be a single person. When James Wilson, the Pennsylvania delegate, said, I think the executive office should be a single president. Several of the delegates said, are you insane? We just fought a bloody war to get rid of a monarch. Why do we want this? What they called the fetus of monarchy, where one person will inevitably try to gain more and more power. So they proposed ideas such as a three person presidency, a triumvirate, or even Ben Franklin at one point had suggested a council of 12 people. So I thought as part of my project, I'm trying to express all my rights. I want to do a petition. First amendment says you have the right to petition. So that was my petition. I got hundreds of people to sign that we should reconsider having three presidents.
A.J. Jacobs: [00:21:23] And I brought it to Congress. I brought it to Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and presented it to him. And he was very polite. He said, you're injecting common sense into our democracy, our conversation. I'm not sure that's true. He said he would consider it. And honestly, I don't really want three presidents. The point of it was to say we have a problem, that this fetus of monarchy has actually become true. The president has way too much power in war, making power in foreign trade in all sorts of areas. It's not what the Founding Fathers envisioned. They thought Congress was the number one. That was the first article Congress president was the second article, and much shorter. So we have to restrain we have to put more guardrails on the president, as we've seen, because if not, and you have a norm- breaking president like Trump, he is going to take more and more power. And he has made it very clear. So we need guardrails. And there are plenty of ones that you can do without having three presidents without having a massive change in structure. Even something as simple as getting rid of the supermajority requirement in Congress, so that Congress can take back some of that power and actually get stuff done.
Mila Atmos: [00:22:42] Yeah, I mean, I think this is one of the big things that I learned in doing this podcast is that Congress needs to reclaim its old power that it used to
have. And I think people just don't realize how things have changed because, you know, we're living in the soup every day. So we don't know. And nobody reads the Constitution and nobody really is interested in knowing except for reading the hot takes.
A.J. Jacobs: [00:23:05] Right. And just to follow up on that, I spent a lot of time reading 18th century newspapers and and it was all about the Congress. That was the front page was the Congress. And when they changed the names from, for instance, there was a dance called the King's Minuet. They changed it to the Congress Minuet or King Street became Congress Street. Congress was really considered, that was the heart of democracy.
Mila Atmos: [00:23:31] Yeah. Well, one idea that really caught my eye in the book is to nix elections altogether and choose people by lottery. And it's an election year. A big election year, 2024. So I thought to myself, this is actually a really interesting idea, but how would it work?
A.J. Jacobs: [00:23:51] Yes, this is an idea, again, I didn't come up with it. It's been floated around. Adam Grant, the psychologist, wrote an interesting op ed in the New York Times about it. It sounds crazy undemocratic. No one votes. But what happens is you qualify, you have to qualify some sort of exam that says, you know enough about civics and then it's a lottery. And it's like the way you select for jury duty, it is called sortition. It did happen in ancient Greece. There was a bit of sortition. Now if you take this to the extreme, like everyone would be chosen, the president would be chosen by lottery. Congress chosen by lottery. I think we are not ready for that. That would be a radical change. I do think that it would be interesting to start small. Say maybe two members of a city council can be chosen by lottery and then see how that goes and then build it out from there if it actually works. But the idea is it's more democratic because you don't have people who can buy their way into office. You also don't necessarily have people who are narcissists and power mongers who want the office. So it's certainly has its drawbacks. It's complicated, and you might get someone who just knows nothing. But I agree, it's an interesting idea that I would like to see it start very small and see where it goes.
Mila Atmos: [00:25:16] Yeah, well, one thing that I thought about when I read this part in your book was how in some universities, the way that you pick department chairs is
through lottery, which is to say, or maybe just take turns, you know, so everybody obviously in the department is qualified to be department chair, given that they all have the same area of expertise, whatever department they're in. And, you know, not one person needs to be the department chair. And then you just kind of rotate, you know, you do it just for 2 or 3 years and then you don't do it anymore. Maybe one of the ways that we could do it in the United States is to do it with members of Congress. I mean, that would be maybe a really bad idea. But all this to say, there are some people that we have already elected, and perhaps out of those people, we know that they know how Congress works, right? They could rotate or be chosen by lottery to be president. It could be bad.
A.J. Jacobs: [00:26:06] Experimentation I think is great. We need this. It's called the American experiment. We need to experiment more. And by the way, Switzerland has an executive council of seven people and they rotate who is the head. And it's pretty much a figurehead. The person who is the president for that year has the same amount of power. They have a little more ceremonial duties, but they have sort of a council of presidents. So it has been done. Right.
Mila Atmos: [00:26:37] Well, I just kind of feel like in this time where we feel so hopeless and the politics seem, you know, completely unsolvable for everyday people. Right? We need to air these ideas and try them out. And to your point, one of the things you said over and over again in the book is that the founders had a very large appetite for experiment. You know, they were really creative and they were like, let's try this, you know, let's have a discussion. But people are no longer really willing to have discussions.
A.J. Jacobs: [00:27:04] No. And we we sort of think, well, this is the way it is. This is the natural way that government is supposed to be. But they never thought like that. And that's why I love reading the ideas. Another idea that I thought was interesting was James Wilson said that the Senate should not be elected by states. You should have districts that span different states that are the equal size, equal number of people. So that would have solved our problem, where you have someone in Wyoming who elects a senator has 300 times the power of someone in California.
Mila Atmos: [00:27:37] Right. Yeah. That's right. So democracy is a practice that we need to engage in together. It's not a solitary activity for the most part. Right. And I was really struck by how many people you interacted with during the course of this project. You spoke to scholars, soldiers, re-enactors, voters, poll workers, cake bakers. What did you learn about the original meaning of the Constitution from these interactions?
A.J. Jacobs: [00:28:04] Well, I learned how different it was. And I mentioned earlier the idea that rights were not seen as these trump cards, these absolute trump cards. I also learned that what we assume is in the Constitution is not necessarily in the Constitution. So, for instance, the idea of the Electoral College, this winner takes all system that we have where states a lot all of their electoral votes to one candidate except for Nebraska and Maine, where you can split the electoral vote.
Mila Atmos: [00:28:41] They have a proportional system.
A.J. Jacobs: [00:28:43] Yes. So there's nothing in the Constitution that says you have to do a winner take all system, as evidenced by the fact that Nebraska and Maine. And I think the Founding Fathers would have much preferred a proportional splitting of the electoral vote because it's more democratic. You can game the system much more easily with this winner take all, as we've seen where you get lower popular vote, but you're able to win the presidency. So that is just an example of something everyone assumes is, oh, well, that's the way it's always been done. But no, same with a supermajority. This idea that you need 60 senators to pass any major legislation not in the Constitution. And there's a lot of evidence that the Founding Fathers would have found this horrible. In fact, James Madison wrote a letter later in his life when this idea was starting to catch on, and he said, well, this is terrible. We don't want a tyranny of the majority, but at the same time, we don't want a tyranny of the minority where the minority can hold up legitimate legislation.
Mila Atmos: [00:29:46] Right. Which is definitely the case right now.
A.J. Jacobs: [00:29:48] Right.
Mila Atmos: [00:29:48] Yeah. So in addition to finding out that community matters, that the public welfare should be top of mind, it also turns out that a single person can make
a difference. And I was incredibly struck by the example of Gregory Watson and the 27th amendment. And I think all of us should know his example, because it turns out one person can totally make a difference and even pass a constitutional amendment. Tell us more.
A.J. Jacobs: [00:30:17] Yeah, this is one of my favorite stories in the book. I interviewed this man named Gregory Watson, and without him, we would not have the 27th amendment. He was responsible along with others, but he led the charge to get this amendment passed. And just quickly, the story is he was a student at the University of Texas at Austin, and he discovered this sort of zombie amendment that James Madison had wrote back in the 1780s. And this amendment had said Congress should not be able to give itself a raise that session. You can raise it. And that's totally legitimate. Makes a lot of sense. He also discovered it had never been passed, because you need three quarters of the state legislatures to approve it, and they didn't get three quarters of those 13 colonies. However, it didn't die. It was still sort of in limbo. And he said, if we get three quarters of the 50 states to sign off on this, it actually could become law. This was back in the late 80s, early 90s. So he wrote hundreds of letters to state legislatures. He convinced someone in Maine to take it on. The Maine Legislature voted for it, and that set off a domino effect. And by the end, he got three quarters of the states to ratify the 27th amendment, saying Congress cannot give itself a raise and it's amazing. He is one man, and on the one hand, you need a community to do things. You need cooperation. It's the heart of our democracy. But seemingly paradoxically, you can also have one person have a huge impact. So I just find it inspiring. I have a few other examples in the book of single people who made huge impacts, including this woman named Feb Burr, who is the mother of a. I believe it's a Tennessee legislature. When the 19th amendment needed to be ratified.
Mila Atmos: [00:32:22] Just to remind the listener, what is the 19th amendment.
A.J. Jacobs: [00:32:25] That is the right of women to vote. And Tennessee was sort of could go either way. But she put a note in her son's suit that said, "be a good boy and vote for the 19th amendment. "And his was the deciding vote in Tennessee, which was then the deciding state, and the 19th amendment was passed. So thank you, Feb, for making history.
Mila Atmos: [00:32:50] Yes, I love that story. Be a good boy, she tells her adult son. Make sure you vote for women, for women's right to vote. So you lived in a way where you could have been shaking hands, breaking bread with the Founding fathers. So we have to know: who is your favorite founding father and why?
A.J. Jacobs: [00:33:07] Well, it's kind of easy for me. My favorite founding father, Ben Franklin, for many reasons. First of all, at the end of his life, he was very much an abolitionist. Secondly, he was just such a curious mind and he had so many interests. And third, one of the virtues that I love, that we need more of is his epistemic humility. He said during the convention, the older I get, the less certain I am of my own opinions. And that is something you don't see in America today. He also told the story at the convention. It's a little joke parable. He said, there is a French lady who said to her sister, it's so strange. I have never met anyone beside myself who is right about every topic. And his point was, we're all that French lady. We think that we're right on every topic, but how can that be? There are 8 billion people and you're the one who's right on every topic. So he was very open to changing his mind and evolving. And that is something we need to embrace and many of the Founding fathers were. One last story is James Madison on his deathbed -- this is according to lore -- he made a face and his niece said, "what's wrong, uncle?" And he said, "oh, nothing. It's just I changed my mind" and then he died. So we don't know what he changed his mind on. It could be the bicameral legislature. Could be what kind of soup he likes. But the fact that right to the end, he was considering other viewpoints and willing to be flexible and look at the evidence and say, you know what, I was wrong. Let's try this, I love that.
Mila Atmos: [00:34:54] Yeah, yeah. Well, tell us about something where you changed your mind from how you felt about the Constitution before, and now that you have.
A.J. Jacobs: [00:35:04] Sure.
Mila Atmos: [00:35:04] Well, taken a deep dive.A.J. Jacobs: [00:35:05] One was the idea of states, which I had always found a very strange idea. And some of the Founding fathers were also skeptical of states. Alexander Hamilton, at one point during the Constitution, he said, let's just get rid of states. Like, you can't serve two masters. Why should there be a government and then another
government? He later said that he was misinterpreted, but there were many founding fathers very skeptical of state power. I also have been skeptical of states for much of my life, because I see them as sort of an impediment. State rights are often used to block civil rights, for instance, But I talked to these great constitutional scholars from all over the political spectrum, and I see now that if done properly, states can be a benefit to democracy, because they could be what Justice Brandeis called the laboratories of democracy, where you try something out in a state and then if it works, then go national. So for instance, the Maine and Nebraska way of doing the Electoral College, let's let's use that nationally. I mean, Obamacare was inspired by this Massachusetts health care law. Now, I think there are problems right now because the states are sort of controlled by the national parties, so they're not experimenting in proper ways. But I see now the possibility that states could be a force for good.
Mila Atmos: [00:36:39] Mhm. Actually that's a really great idea on the Electoral College. I hadn't thought about that because I think that's something that can be passed state by state. Right. Like where you say that you alott your electoral college votes proportionally like Nebraska and Maine. And I think that's totally doable. But, you know, it requires at least one person who's going to start this petition process.
A.J. Jacobs: [00:36:59] Well, it also requires some sacrifice. The states have more power when they give all of their votes to that one person. So it would be sacrificing a bit of their own power for the common good, which is a very founding America idea. So I would love to see it and I think we should push for it.
Mila Atmos: [00:37:20] Yeah, totally. I mean, you know, we've talked a lot about election reforms like getting rid of gerrymandering, having ranked choice voting, having open primaries. And this is another really great idea that I had not considered. And we should put that in the bucket with everything else.
A.J. Jacobs: [00:37:35] I mean, I would love to get rid of the Electoral College. Mila Atmos: [00:37:38] That too! That might be harder, though.
A.J. Jacobs: [00:37:40] But this is yeah, this is sort of like a middle step between getting rid of the Electoral College and reforming it a little.
Mila Atmos: [00:37:47] Right. Right. Because I think getting rid of the Electoral College people say, you know, go directly to direct democracy and popular vote for the president, but this would conserve the Electoral College, right. But just a lot of votes differently.
A.J. Jacobs: [00:38:00] Exactly. Yeah.
Mila Atmos: [00:38:02] There was a question about Benjamin Franklin and whether the sun is rising or setting on democracy. And what do you think is the sun rising or setting on democracy? And what's the evidence are?
A.J. Jacobs: [00:38:15] It's a great question. And just to give a quick background, this came from the Constitutional Convention, where George Washington was sitting in a wooden chair, and on that wooden chair was a carving of the sun, but it was only half the sun. It was cut off. You couldn't see the bottom half. So Benjamin Franklin wondered, well, is this portraying a setting sun or a rising sun at the end of the convention, when they had, against all odds, created this constitution? He decided, the sun is rising on America. And part of my quest in the Year of living constitutionally was to figure out, is the sun still rising, or is it, as many people fear, setting? And my takeaway is that it's up to us. The sun is a bit of a misleading metaphor because the sun is controlled by gravity. We we cannot control the sun, but we can control whether the sun is rising or setting on democracy. But it's going to take work. It's going to take people like you, and it's going to take your listeners and having these discussions and advocating for democratic reforms, which should be nonpartisan. You know, more access to votes is something that everyone should agree on and work for. I am optimistic with an asterisk. I am optimistic that we can make our democracy better, but it is going to take a lot of work. And if we just like you said earlier, if we're apathetic or we're nihilistic or cynical, then that's when we'll slide into autocracy.
Mila Atmos: [00:39:47] Mhm. Totally agree. So we're always building our civic action toolkit here at Future Hindsight. And of all the things you did in the year of living constitutionally, what are two things everyday people should be doing that we just don't do right now?
A.J. Jacobs: [00:40:03] Well, first I am going to continue the election cake movement in November of 2024, and I would love for any listeners who like to bake or decorate to join. So you can reach me on email or my website, AJjacobs.com. Because we're going to organize hopefully thousands of cakes throughout the United States. And I'm telling you, it'll make you feel better and it'll make people feel better. And who doesn't like cake? I guess some people. So that's one small thing. Another is to not just read the Constitution, which is only, by the way, it's about half an hour. It's four pages long -- long pages, but four pages. Not just read it, but discuss it and listen to shows like yours and have discussions with people who you disagree with. I feel part of the book is my hope would be people would be more empowered to when they hear a politician say that's not constitutional or that is constitutional, they would be more empowered to judge for themselves using these tools from the book, and so have conversations with people about what does the Constitution really say and how should we interpret it? What are the advantages of focusing on original meaning versus balancing other aspects like consequences and original purpose and the future? So those would be to read and talk about the Constitution and bake a cake.
Mila Atmos: [00:41:36] This is very good advice. I love the baking cake idea. I love the idea of celebrating democracy on Election Day. I think that's very powerful. I think you cited a study, actually, that showed that election turnout increased by 7% if there was cake, right?
A.J. Jacobs: [00:41:51] Yes. Well, it was a, it was by some Yale political scientists. And they took this idea of the festival aspect, and they recreated some festivals in different states. And it increased turnout. And Australia has, I believe they call it the democracy sausage. They do barbecues on Election day, so it has some precedents and Yeah, if you like to bake, bake a cake. I'd love to have you, Mila, be one of our bakers.
Mila Atmos: [00:42:18] Yeah, well, I think the idea is not only to bake the cake, but to stand outside of the polling station and give out the cake.
A.J. Jacobs: [00:42:23] Exactly. Well, and also, even if it's not the polling station, it could be your work, could be your neighbourhood. It's just anyone getting people involved and reminding them that democracy is sweet.
Mila Atmos: [00:42:37] Yeah. So last question. Looking into the future, what makes you hopeful?
A.J. Jacobs: [00:42:44] What makes me hopeful is the creativity and flexibility of America, and how it's in its DNA, and how these founders were very creative and flexible. And I believe we still are incredibly creative and flexible in, say, technology. We've lost a little of that creativity and flexibility in politics, but I believe it's still there in our DNA. So that makes me hopeful we can recapture that and and continue to have a much healthier democracy than we have now.
Mila Atmos: [00:43:18] Yeah. Totally agree. Totally agree. I do think that we are flexible. I think Americans are incredibly creative. I think they are, by and large, hopeful, optimistic people. I think if we are just embracing the process, you know, thinking democratically, actually reading the Constitution ourselves, like you said, and having the kind of discourse around the Constitution and democracy after we have bolstered our own knowledge, I think would be incredible. It would. It would change who we are as a polity.
A.J. Jacobs: [00:43:48] Huzzah is what I say.
Mila Atmos: [00:43:50] That's it. Thank you very much for joining me on FutureHindsight. It was really a pleasure to have you on the show. A.J. Jacobs: [00:43:56] Thank you Mila. It was it was a joy.
Mila Atmos: [00:43:59] AJ Jacobs is the author of The Year of Living Constitutionally: One Man's Humble Quest to follow the Constitution's Original Meaning.
Next week, on Future Hindsight, we're joined by Alissa Quart. She's the executive director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and is the author of several books. Her most recent is Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream.
Alissa Quart: [00:44:26] Telling a different story about poverty or financial instability is actually a form of fighting disinformation, because the original disinformation narrative is the story that we can do this all on our own, that all we have to do is hard work and
being kind of impervious and incredibly individualistic and self-sufficient and we will make it.
Mila Atmos: [00:44:48] That's next time on Future Hindsight. And before I go, first of all, thanks so much for listening. If you liked this episode, you'll love what we have in store. Be sure to hit that follow button on Apple Podcasts or the subscribe button on your favorite podcast app, so you'll catch all of our upcoming episodes. Thank you! Oh, and please leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts. It seems like a small thing, but it can make a huge difference for an independent show like ours. It's the main way other people can find out about the show. We really appreciate your help. Thank you. This episode was produced by Zack Travis and me. Until next time, stay engaged.
The Democracy Group: [00:45:39] This podcast is part of the democracy Group.