Okay, people. It’s 2024. We’ve got AI writing term papers, billionaires launching themselves into space for fun, and yet here we are, still arguing about a 240-year-old document like it’s some sort of ancient treasure map. The Constitution is great, don’t get me wrong, but maybe—and I’m just spitballing here—it’s time to admit that some parts of it are, let’s say, a little outdated. Let’s take it to the shop!
Look, we all get frustrated with the Supreme Court for interpreting things in ways that make us go, “Wait, how did we get here?” But let’s be honest: we haven’t exactly done our part to update the instruction manual for our democracy. It’s like we’re mad at the car for breaking down, but we haven’t changed the oil since 1789. We can keep blaming the mechanics, but maybe—just maybe—it’s time to pop the hood and figure out what we, the people, actually want for the next 240 years.
Take the Vice President. What does this job even do? I mean, besides waiting for something bad to happen to the President or breaking the occasional tie in the Senate, this gig is basically “Assistant to the Regional Manager.” And that’s not a knock on any specific Vice President—it’s just that the Constitution doesn’t really say much about the job. It’s kind of like a footnote. Like, “Oh yeah, we should probably have a Vice President… just in case.” After two centuries, you’d think we’d have taken another look at it. Maybe it’s time to give the role some actual structure, so we don’t just have Vice Presidents sitting around like they’re on call at a hospital, waiting for something catastrophic to happen. I’m just saying, there’s a conversation to be had there.
And speaking of conversations, let’s talk about campaign finance. Ah, Citizens United. You know, the case where we all decided that corporations are people and money is speech. So, if money is speech, then billionaires are the kid in the back of the class who won’t shut up. They’re out here drowning out everyone else’s voice, and we’re all stuck yelling, “Can you let the rest of us get a word in?” But instead of arguing about what the First Amendment *meant* when it was written by people who had never even seen a dollar bill, let’s decide what it should mean *now*. Do we want elections or auctions? That’s the kind of thing we should probably clarify, because right now, the only thing getting heard is a fat stack of cash.
Now, the Electoral College. Oh, the Electoral College. It’s like that weird rule in your family where the youngest kid always gets to pick the movie, even though no one likes their choice. Twice in the last two decades, we’ve had presidents win without the popular vote, and people are like, “Wait… why do we do this again?” Well, it made sense when the country was just 13 states and people traveled by horse and buggy, but now it’s like asking why we still use landlines. Maybe it’s time to figure out if we still need this system or if we can come up with something that actually reflects the will of the people—you know, the ones voting. And while we’re at it, let’s stop pretending that it’s about “interpreting” what the founders meant when they couldn’t have imagined a nation this size or diverse.
Oh, and guns. You knew this one was coming. Look, the Second Amendment was written in a world where “state-of-the-art” meant “musket.” You could fire off one round, then spend the next five minutes reloading. Now we’ve got firearms that can fire faster than some people can blink. Yet we’re still having this ongoing debate about what the founders meant by “bear arms.” I’m pretty sure they weren’t imagining AR-15s. But again, instead of arguing over what they would’ve said, we should be asking ourselves what we think makes sense today. This isn’t about erasing the Second Amendment—it’s about having a grown-up conversation about what public safety looks like in a world that’s changed just a bit since 1791.
Privacy? Oh, man. Back when the Constitution was written, privacy was all about keeping the government out of your literal sock drawer. Now? It’s about whether your phone is listening to your conversations about cat food so you get hit with cat food ads for the rest of your life. The framers had no concept of Alexa or Google tracking your every move. Instead of leaving it up to the courts to keep twisting the Fourth Amendment like a pretzel to fit modern-day tech, maybe we should decide what privacy means in 2024 and put it in the document ourselves.
And then there’s Congress. So, fun fact: back in 1789, the House of Representatives had 65 members. But when they did the 1790 census and saw the population hit 4 million, they were like, “Whoa, we should probably expand this,” and bumped the number to 100. They actually did something logical! Now, we’ve got 435 reps for a country of 330 million people. You want to know how many we’d have if we used the same ratio as back in 1790? About 8,300. Yeah, you heard that right. That’s a lot of reps, but you know what that would mean? A lot less power concentrated in a few hands. It’d be a little less like an oligarchy and a little more like actual representative democracy. Just something to chew on.
And what about the Senate? Two senators for every state, no matter how many people live there. Wyoming and California get the same two votes. That’s like giving your dog and your entire extended family the same size Thanksgiving dinner. But what if we went back to the original system, where senators were chosen by state legislatures? It sounds radical now, but maybe it’d help ensure that state interests actually got heard in Washington. maybe we change it. Maybe we don’t. But it’s been a while. Maybe it’s worth at least talking about it. Again, we’re just spitballing here, but it’s worth a thought. especially since we’re the ones responsible for maintaining our own sovereignty. Trust me when I tell you if we don’t, then it will be maintained for us – – by the very government that is supposed to serve us – – and not the other way around.
All I’m saying is, we keep getting mad at the Supreme Court for interpreting this old document in ways we don’t like, but at the end of the day, we haven’t had the guts to update it. We’re in charge here! The Constitution is supposed to work for us, not the other way around. But we’ve been sitting on our hands, hoping the courts will read the minds of a bunch of dudes from the 18th century who had no idea what kind of world we’d be living in now.
So here’s the pitch: instead of waiting for the next court ruling to send us into a rage spiral, let’s just start the conversation. What do we, the people of 2024, want our Constitution to say? Let’s stop treating it like a sacred text we can’t touch and start acting like it’s the people’s document—because it is. We’re the ones who get to decide what it should mean, and if it’s not working for us anymore, we’ve got the power to fix it.
