The Democratic Party's success in the midterm elections of November 3, 2026, may represent something far more consequential than a political victory. I suggest that what we witnessed was another manifestation of the United States Constitution asserting its authority. But whether the Constitution actually won will depend on what happens from this point forward.
The Constitution has been asserting itself ever since the government it established began operating in 1789. Its authority does not originate with the President, Congress, the Supreme Court, or any political party. It originates with the People who ratified it and established the procedures by which it may be changed.
Donald Trump and the MAGA movement provide an opportunity to examine a danger that confronts every constitutional democracy: the possibility that those entrusted with administering an existing Constitution may attempt to substitute their own understanding of governmental authority for the constitutional arrangements adopted by the People, without following the prescribed procedures for constitutional change.
This is not exclusively an American problem. It is a problem inherent in human custody of authoritative communication. Those entrusted with preserving, interpreting, and implementing an authoritative instrument may gradually come to behave as though their responsibility to administer it includes the authority to rewrite it.
The November 3 elections have created an opportunity to confront this problem. But electoral success does not, by itself, establish constitutional fidelity. The Democratic Party does not become the author of the Constitution by winning control of Congress, any more than the Republican Party acquired that authority by winning the presidency.
The Constitution does not belong to either party. Both are subject to it.
I suggest that if Americans had a clearer understanding of why the Constitution requires the President to swear an Oath to protect the Constitution, Donald Trump might never have been elected the first time, and his return to the presidency might have been prevented. That proposition deserves serious examination, not merely partisan agreement.
We now have a unique opportunity to reintroduce ourselves to the Constitution — not as a symbol of national identity, a collection of judicial opinions, or an instrument for achieving preferred political outcomes, but as an authoritative communication whose custodians are bound by its provisions.
The Constitution's survival cannot depend on which political party wins an election. It depends on whether those entrusted with constitutional authority understand the distinction between exercising that authority and attempting to become its authors.
One of the first steps toward that understanding is to revisit a constitutional safeguard whose purpose has been widely misunderstood: impeachment.
Why did the Constitution's framers provide for impeachment? Was it intended primarily as punishment for wrongdoing, or as a means of protecting constitutional government from failures of constitutional custody?
We will explore that questionI next time.
