This book traces the evolution of the constitutional order, explaining Donald Trumps election as a symptom of a degraded democratic-capitalist system. Beginning with the framers vision of a balanced systembalanced between the public and private spheres, between government power and individual rightsthe constitutional order evolved over two centuries until it reached its present stage, Democracy, Inc., in which corporations and billionaires wield herculean political power. The five conservative justices of the early Roberts Court, including the late Antonin Scalia, stamped Democracy, Inc., with a constitutional imprimatur, contravening the framers vision while simultaneously claiming to follow the Constitutions original meaning. The justices believed they were upholding the American way of life, but they instead placed our democratic-capitalist system in its gravest danger since World War II. With Neil Gorsuch replacing Scalia, the new Court must choose: Will it follow the early Roberts Court in approving and bolstering Democracy, Inc., or will it restore the crucial balance between the public and private spheres in our constitutional system?
Chapter 1: Introduction: Democracy, Inc., and the Betrayal of the Constitution 1
Part I: The Foundation for a Balanced Structure 15
Chapter 2: The Constitutional Framing: Republican Democracy, Private Property, and Free
Expression 15
The Revolutionary Background 18
Experience Defeats Idealism 22
The Nature of the Citizen-Self 24
Republican Democratic Government and the Public Sphere 30
Property and the Private Sphere 33
Balancing the Public and Private 44
Free Speech and a Free Press 55
Part IIl3ë