How the Constitution Can Bring Us Together (with Yuval Levin)

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🗓️ 10 June 2024

⏱️ 63 minutes

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Summary

Can a document unify a nation? Yuval Levin of the American Enterprise Institute and author of American Covenant argues that the Constitution unified the United States at the founding of the country and that understanding the Constitution can help bring the country together today. Listen as Levin speaks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about how the Constitution not only took into account fractious politics, but also ensured that polarization would lead to a stronger democracy. Topics include the inherent limitations placed on the majority and how that affects policy formation, the vital if misunderstood advantages of the electoral college, and why, despite all the warnings to the contrary, this is far from a dangerous moment in American political history.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, Conversations for the Curious, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:07.8	I'm your host Russ Roberts of Shalem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Go to Econ Talk. in to today's conversation. You'll also find our archives with every episode we've done
0:24.5	going back to 2006. Our email address is mail at econ talk.org we'd love to hear from you. Today is May 16, 2024, and my guest is political thinker and author Yval Levin.
0:44.4	He is the director of social, cultural, and constitutional studies at the American Enterprise Institute,
0:50.4	where he also holds the Beth and Ravenel Curry chair in public policy.
0:54.2	The founder and editor of National Affairs, senior editor at the New
0:57.4	Atlanta's contributing editor at National Review, and a contributing opinion writer at the New York Times.
1:04.0	This is Yevol's fourth appearance on Econ Talk.
1:07.0	He was last year in March of 2020,
1:09.0	discussing his book A Time to Build.
1:11.0	Our topic for today is his newest book, A Time to Build. Our topic for today is his newest book,
1:14.5	American Covenant,
1:15.8	how the Constitution unified our nation and could again.
1:20.7	Yval, welcome back to Econ Talk. Thanks so much for having me, Russ.
1:24.0	What are you trying to achieve with this book?
1:26.0	It's a very ambitious book about at a very, I'd say,
1:31.0	sophisticated level of thinking about the role the Constitution and
1:35.5	are in the founding in the United States and then the role it could play today
1:39.2	what are you trying to achieve? Well you, this book is a reintroduction to the Constitution for
1:46.2	Americans who know it and a lot of Americans, you know, if you follow the news
1:50.4	we feel like we hear about the Constitution all the time but I think it's worth
1:54.0	stepping back in a moment like this which is a moment of division and tension in American political
	...

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