Urgency of constitutional literacy amendment

Constitutionally clueless Marianne Williamson's announcement of 2024 presidential candidacy is but the tip of an illiteracy iceberg

Reading instructors are required to know how to read.

Flying instructors are required to know how to fly.

Driving instructors are required to know how to drive.

The makers of the United States Constitution, the nation’s birth certificate and playbook for governing the country, requires every public official to swear or affirm to uphold and defend the Constitution. As regards the President, the specific words of the oath were prescribed in Article II, section 1: “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

The Constitution’s makers omitted a constitutional literacy requirement for public officials because they did not conceive the political culture would fail to ostracize and stigmatize any candidate who did not have a working knowledge of the Constitution’s playbook for governance. That expectation was largely fulfilled until the American Empire defeated the American Republic and the armored knight defeated the thinker in the corridors of power after World War II.

At that point, constitutional illiteracy no longer was a de facto disqualification for public office—including the presidency. When Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson was running for president in the 1950s, a supporter purportedly said to him: "Every thinking person in America will be voting for you." Stevenson replied, "I'm afraid that won't do — I need a majority."

Shielded by vast constitutional ignorance, governance outside the Constitution became the norm: illegal presidential wars, assassinations, surveillance, and trespasses on due process. Congress devoted less than nine hours to considering the flagrantly unconstitutional Gulf of Tonkin Resolution which spawned the trillion dollar Vietnam War debacle. United States Senator Roman Hruska (R. Neb.) defended mediocrity on the United States Supreme Court in supporting constitutional dolt Judge G. Harold Carswell as an Associate Justice.

Each year, constitutional illiteracy, like cancer, metastasizes little by little. Stage 4 has now been reached. President Donald Trump insisted the Constitution had twelve (12) articles, even though little mental exertion would have proven the correct number was seven (7). President Joe Biden’s nominee to the United States District Court for the District of Washington, Charnelle Bjelkengren, did not know the subject matter of Article II—the Executive Branch—or Article V—amendments.

I recently attended an event featuring freshman members of the 118th Congress. I asked a newly elected member from Georgia whether he would use the inherent contempt power of Congress—unanimously affirmed by the Supreme Court a century ago and the crown jewel of investigation—o extract information from the executive branch necessary for timely oversight. His eyes glazed over. Neither he nor his staff nor other freshman had a clue as to what I was talking about.

Marianne Williamson, announced this weekend, her narcissistic quest to capture the Democratic Party nomination for the White House in 2024.

Ms. Williamson would have been treated as a pariah if she had run for president during the first 150 years of the Republic. Her knowledge of the Constitution she would be requited to protect and defend if elected approaches zero. She is unable to compose a single sentence worthy of the Federalist Papers. Her treasured credentials are acting as a spiritual advisor to Oprah Winfrey and as a surrogate for Mother Teresa in the United States.

On a Democratic debate stage in 2019, instead of calling for President Trump’s impeachment for serial violations of the Constitution, she sought to coax him into her love camp with all the naivete of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington: “Mr. President, if you’re listening, I want you to hear me, please: You have harnessed fear for political purposes, and only love can cast that out…I’m going to harness love for political purposes. I will meet you on that field, and sir, love will win.”

Not only is Williamson a constitutional imbecile, she is a superannuated clairvoyant at age 70. She dropped out of the race in 2020 never exceeding low single digits in polling averages and never having met Trump on any field. She obviously is clueless of Machiavelli’s The Prince: “It is better to be feared than to be loved, if one cannot be both, “ if you are a political leader.

What is terrifying is that Ms. Williamson’s limitless constitutional ignorance has become normalized throughout the United States political establishment—as stupid as abandoning the wheel as an instrument of locomotion. One is reminded of Casey Stengel’s famous frustration over the hapless New York Mets in 1962: “Can’t anybody here play this game?”

Isn’t an amendment urgently needed to require constitutional literacy as a condition to holding public office? What else can deliver us from Idiocracy?