The United States is a country riven by political and cultural fractures and tensions. And in the present day, the American Constitution is as much a source of vexation as it is of inspiration. Timely, indeed, is a new book by Yuval Levin, a 47-year-old, Israeli-born political scientist who is the director of social, cultural and constitutional studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in Washington, D.C. Titled “American Covenant,” the book describes how the Constitution unified the United States—and could do so again if Americans were to give it a chance. Mr. Levin was interviewed by Tunku Varadarajan, a fellow at AEI and a writer at The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. The transcript was edited for clarity and concision.
Tunku Varadarajan: Did you write this book because you felt that America had fallen out of love with its Constitution?
Yuval Levin: I think that’s fair. I have been trying to figure out the sources of our divisions and the breakdown of our political culture. And that meant thinking about the ways in which we’re divided, but also thinking about why we deny ourselves the tools we have for overcoming those problems. And those tools are, especially, constitutional tools. On the left and the right, there’s increasingly an impatience with the American Constitution. People find it too constricting, too slow.
I think of the parable of “Chesterton’s Fence.” [The English literary critic and philosopher] G.K. Chesterton said, “If you inherit a piece of property and there’s a fence on it, and you want to take it down, make sure you understand why it’s there before you take it down. And maybe you’ll find that you should take it down, but if you can’t understand why it’s there, leave it where it is because somebody had a reason and you should make sure you understand it.”
Americans inherited a constitutional system, and our reaction to it is very often to say, “tear it down.” At the very least, we should understand first why these things have the shape they do.
Varadarajan: You say you’ve noticed impatience with the Constitution on both left and right. But it’s always been my sense that the left is a little more impatient.
Levin: Yes, the left is more so. Progressivism really arose as a movement of impatience with the Constitution.
Varadarajan: But you say that the right is impatient, too. How?
Levin: First, there’s a conservative tendency toward a kind of judicial activism. Now that the Supreme Court leans more in our direction, we’ve forgotten why we’ve thought that it should be restrained all those years. I think we were right and we should remember why. And second, there is also — more on the margins of the right — a tendency now to think that the constitutional era is over, the left has already broken the Constitution, that for us to pretend that it’s still there is just to disarm ourselves. And so instead, let’s acknowledge that that’s all gone and that politics is war. Now, I think that’s not right. It gives much too much credit to the left, and we still need the Constitution.
Varadarajan: You’re not just referring, are you, to the Trumpian right … Is that correct?
Levin: There’s an element of that in some of the Trumpian right. There’s also an element of that, I would say, in a kind of post-liberal right that’s not all Trumpian, and it’s not about Trump. I think it’s serious, but I also think it’s mistaken about what the Constitution is for and about what’s required for the country to function and flourish.
While I disagree with them, I think it’s a serious argument. And I think the argument of the progressives is serious, too. Their impatience is rooted in a political vision that has some force, but which I think ultimately is mistaken and needs to be answered.
Varadarajan: How would you define this “post-liberal right”?
Levin: I think of people like Adrian Vermeule, the Harvard Law professor, or someone like Pat Dineen, who is a political theorist at Notre Dame. These are intellectuals, not political activists. There are certainly some activists who think this way too. They argue that the kind of classical liberalism that’s advanced by the Constitution is not sufficient to advance the common good in our society. They’re a minority, thankfully, but a vocal one. And I think they’re worth responding to. My book certainly mostly speaks to the left, but it does also disagree with this side on the right.
Varadarajan: Equally, Yuval, the left isn’t a monolith. Not everyone on the left is progressive.
Levin: That’s right. But I would say the constitutional thought of the left at this time is progressive and it treats the Constitution as a relic of the 18th century, as undemocratic, as inefficient, as a refuge for corruption and racism. I think that’s all wrong.
Varadarajan: So would you say that even mainstream Democrats are constitutionally progressive?
Levin: I think they are. There are times when they are openly hostile to the Constitution, but even in other times they treat it as something that has to be tolerated only because it’s hard to change. But in their ideal system, we would have a more radically assertive government.
Varadarajan: So they treat it as a sort of annoying speed bump on the road to progressive Nirvana.
Levin: I think they do. And look, we now have open hostility to the Supreme Court, where it is described as illegitimate by Democratic politicians day after day. We have increasing hostility to the Bill of Rights, to free speech and religion.
Varadarajan: Is the hostility to the Supreme Court also a hostility to the Constitution?
Levin: Yes. To argue against the independence of the judiciary, implicitly and often explicitly, ultimately amounts to an argument against the system we have.
Varadarajan: So to call into question the legitimacy of the Supreme Court as currently constituted is in effect to call into question the legitimacy of the Constitution?
Levin: Yes. Look, the members of the Supreme Court as currently constituted were appointed in accordance with the Constitution. And I would argue the Court now is more true to the Constitution than the courts have been at any other point in my lifetime. To find that unacceptable, it seems to me, is to be hostile to the constitutional order.
Varadarajan: Are you saying that the court is acting in a way that’s activist right now?
Levin: Generally, no. The current court is working to restore the constitutional order. It’s the only part of our government that I would say is closer to working properly now than it was 50 years ago.
Varadarajan: Can you give me some examples?
Levin: The court sees its role as keeping the actors in our system in their place rather than as resolving public disputes itself. So when it overturns Roe v Wade, for example — it says this is an issue that belongs in the hands of the democratic public and not in the hands of the judiciary. And we can see already that there’s going to have to be a process of persuasion in the states, and that process is going to have to force people to put their best arguments forward. That’s how these kinds of debates happen.
Another area is administrative law, where the Court is reestablishing its own proper role, forcing Congress to do its job and forcing administrative agencies back into their place. We see that with the overturning of the Chevron decision this term. The court is trying to reassert the coherence of the constitutional order. And I think in that sense it’s doing a great constitutional service. I’m a fan of this court.
Varadarajan: Given the tensions that followed the overturning of Roe v Wade, it wasn’t enough for those who supported the Supreme Court’s decision to say, “Guys, calm down, the Court is acting in accordance with the Constitution, so just chill.”
Levin: There’s also a need for a broad project of public education about the Constitution, which is going to take a long time. I don’t have much hope that I’m going to persuade today’s progressive activists of anything, but I need to talk past them to the rising generation of Americans who need to see that they’re not inheriting a burning pile of garbage, that they’re inheriting a great resource for living in the modern world. And those arguments need to be made. They need to be made in the language and terms of contemporary American life to another generation. The left is very active in speaking to that rising generation and, in my view, thoroughly misinforming them about the country they’re inheriting.
So what can we do? What I can do is write a book. I don’t expect it to change the world, but I think, one by one, these kinds of actions have to fill that gap so that younger Americans can see that there is another argument and a reason to take seriously what their fathers did.
Varadarajan: So you’re playing a long game. Are you basically asking us to skip a generation or two as irredeemable?
Levin: Not necessarily. We have to fight in this generation too. We are winning some political battles and losing others. But we have to speak to the younger generation of Americans. And the next generation, absolutely. Civics education has to happen. It has to happen in elementary, middle and high schools and in the universities. The right is waking up to that need.
Varadarajan: So if I can summarize your book in one-line: the way to resolve our constitutional wars is to find answers or solutions within the Constitution …
Levin: … and to live out constitutionalism, actually engage in politics, coalition-building and persuasion, and do the work of legislating, of involvement in civic life. Not just vote every few years and then watch cable news, but be active citizens.
Varadarajan: I forewarned you that I would ask you about Israel, the other democracy where people have nearly come to blows over constitutional issues. In this, is Israel like the US?
Levin: I think there are some analogies. There’s also a profound dis-analogy.
I think Israel in some ways has exactly what the United States lacks — and lacks exactly what the United States has. Israel has a lot of solidarity. There’s a real national feeling in Israel, a sense of national belonging that is very real in people’s lives.
But the institutions of Israel’s government are weak. They make no sense at all. They’re barely thought through. And Israel has managed to avoid disaster despite having so little institutional structure because of its solidarity.
The United States has much less social solidarity, but it has very strong and well-conceived institutions. I think in a funny way, the last few years have forced me to ask which of these is better than the other. They’re both problems. And both countries feel those problems intensely.
Varadarajan: Which is more perilous, a lack of solidarity or a lack of institutions?
Levin: Israel’s situation is the more dangerous of the two. I don’t just mean dangerous because of its neighbors, but when you rely on solidarity without institutional support, you leave yourself vulnerable to a social crisis that undermines that solidarity and leaves you with nothing underneath. And I think Israel, before October 7, seemed like it was nearing such a crisis. What would actually happen if the prime minister tells the army to do one thing and the court tells it to do another thing? And the prime minister says actually I’m in charge. It’s entirely unclear. There is no structure to answer that question.
Varadarajan: Whereas there is in the United States …
Levin: Yes. There is a clear, written out, thought through, evolved but explicit structure. I think we benefit enormously from that. And I think Israel would benefit from having such a thing, too.
American institutions work to produce some solidarity. The Constitution does do that by forcing us to bargain and accommodate and build coalitions. It forces us to build some solidarity. It’s not going to be [solidarity] like Israel’s. But forced to choose, I would choose to have our strong institutions.
Varadarajan: The source of Israel’s solidarity is its shared history and religion.
Levin: Yes, which we are not going to have.
Varadarajan: We’re not?
Levin: I mean, we have a shared history. But the United States has always been very diverse. It is now intensely diverse, and we can’t count on Israel’s kind of social solidarity to see us through.
Varadarajan: Is it possible to wonder whether the very strength of our institutions has, in some way, worked against the consolidation of solidarity in the United States? We haven’t really needed it because there’s always this kind of institutional safety net that saves us from meltdowns.
Levin: There is some truth to that. It is easy enough to be a minority in America that we don’t have to think that hard about integration. That has been a problem because integration is a good thing. The assimilation of immigrants, the self-conscious construction of a common culture, is an important thing. And there have been times when Americans have been pretty good at that. I do think now we are not good at that. And it’s true, the institutions sometimes save us from the consequences. I’m still glad we have them, but yes, I think there are ways in which they keep us from having a coherent national culture in some cases.
Varadarajan: Does the Constitution require assimilation in some way?
Levin: I think it does. I think the Constitution does assume a set of premises about the purpose of citizenship and the nature of civil society, certain kinds of responsibilities that don’t come naturally. They’re a function of citizen education. An American is not a natural phenomenon. Americans don’t fall from the sky. They’re a social achievement. Americans have to be made and they’re made by our culture. They’re made by our institutions.
Varadarajan: You’re a naturalized American citizen yourself.
Levin: Yes. The promise of the possibility of that kind of integration is a matter of personal experience. I’ve seen it happen. I see how the appeal of the American ideal is not simply a matter of blood and soil or who your father is. It really is possible to become an American. I know that’s true. And part of what moves me to defend this country is that having come from elsewhere, I know that this is not the natural human condition. This is an extraordinary achievement and the alternative to it is social breakdown. And I think too many critics of our system take for granted the kind of social peace that we have.
Varadarajan: Do immigrants understand and appreciate the Constitution better than many native-born Americans?
Levin: Yeah, maybe. I think there’s always been a strand of defenders of America who are immigrants. It happens elsewhere too. I wrote my dissertation at the University of Chicago on Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine, and it occurred to me that they were both of this type. Paine was English, came to America and became the greatest champion of American civilization. Burke was Irish, went to England, and became the greatest defender of the English constitution of the 18th century. I don’t think it’s entirely a coincidence. They could see what wasn’t obvious to the native-born. They could see what it was that was distinct about the societies they were in. Fish don’t see the water. It’s just all they know. But if you’ve seen something else and then you come here, I think it’s much harder to be as down on America as so many people are. And it’s much easier to see what’s extraordinary and good about it.
Varadarajan: So Americans should learn from the immigrants in their midst?
Levin: Yes, I do think so. Look, immigrants now are often encouraged to be critical of America, to see it as some kind of an oppressive power, an imperial power. And I think that’s crazy. Surely to come here as an outsider, to be welcomed and allowed to be a part of what happens here, that’s an extraordinary thing. So I’m grateful for it. And all the work I do is a kind of professional gratitude for America.
Varadarajan: When did you come to America?
Levin: I was eight years old. I came from Israel. My parents are native-born Israelis. I think, now, in a funny way, they both had American personalities long before they ever came here. They started a business together in Israel, which was a strange thing to do in 1970s Israel. It was a small residential construction company. My father’s an engineer, and they ran it together. The hyperinflation of the 1980s in Israel destroyed their business. They had nothing, and so they did another crazy thing. They moved their family to a place where neither of them had ever been before. They had three young children and came here and started over.
Varadarajan: Is there something that America can teach Israel, and vice-versa?
Levin: Sure. America can teach Israel about how to contend with division, about how to sustain a healthy political culture. They’re similar cultures, in a funny way. They’re both founded nations, and live with an idea of their own existence being a kind of achievement, which isn’t everybody’s view.
There’s an interesting sense of precariousness about Israel’s existence that used to be true of 19th century America. If you think about the American national anthem, it’s from 1814. It’s just a song about surviving the night. It’s not a song of triumph and victory. It’s a song of amazement at the very existence of our society. And Israel is very much like that. Israel’s national anthem too. It’s a song of hope about someday creating Israel. That’s a very odd way to think about yourself, but I think there is a connection between these ways of a new nation conceiving of itself.
