Peaceful Political Revolution in America

Welcome to another episode of the Peaceful Political Revolution in America podcast. I want to begin today with a passage that has been sitting with me for some time. It comes from the Swiss scholar Pascal Lottaz, host of the Neutrality Studies podcast, in his March 2026 introduction to an interview with the political scientist Dr. Aaron Good. Lottaz opened that conversation this way. "Crime i...

Welcome to another episode of the Peaceful Political Revolution in America podcast. In this episode, I will be exploring one of the most important and timely questions facing our country today: What would it look like if Americans were to rethink the Constitution? For a long time, the thought of holding a constitutional convention has been dismissed by most Americans, something debated by historia...

When people talk about democracy in America, we often focus on elections… on candidates… on the latest headlines coming out of Washington. But the deeper question—the one that shapes everything—is this: Who actually holds power in our society? Is it the people? Is it our communities? Or is it wealth… concentrated power… and institutions that were never designed to answer to ordinary citizens? Toda...

S3 E3 Confronting the Climate Emergency with Dr. Peter Carterz Nov 24, 2025 Welcome to the Peaceful Political Revolution in America podcast. Dean of Law at UC Berkeley, Erwin Chemerinsky, Sanford Levinson, George Van Cleve, and many others have been calling for constitutional reform for a long time. They say we will not solve the Climate Emergency until we change our now-outdated and dangerous Con...

Welcome back to another episode of the Peaceful Political Revolution in America podcast. Today, I will be talking with Sanford Levinson. Levinson is the W. St John Garwood and W St. John Garwood, Jr. Centennial Chair in Law. He teaches Law at both Harvard and the University of Texas Law School in Austin. Sanford is the author of over 450 articles and book reviews, and seven books, including Our Un...

Welcome to the Peaceful Political Revolution in America podcast. I’ve been on a kind of sabbatical this past year. So much has happened, and I really needed to take the time to explore some of the major developments which, in several important ways, relate directly to the issue of our Constitution. The first was the issue of UAP disclosure. In a stunning announcement, members of Congress revealed...

Welcome to the Peaceful Political Revolution in America Podcast The Anthropocene will be a doozy from what I'm hearing. Even if new technologies and new systems replace the ones currently falling apart, it will be a bumpy ride. It looks as if severe climate-related events will be occurring much more frequently. Monthly events could turn into weekly events, until eventually, those might even b...

Welcome back to the Peaceful Political Revolution in America podcast. I n America, "We The People" are the constituent power, "the actor which always remains outside the government" as Seyes defined it. Or, as James Wilson put it, the people are simply "above" their Constitutions of government. The framers were well aware the people were watching. They were very clear...

In season one, I spoke with Arend Lijphart about democratic political systems. He had a number of recommendations on how Americans could improve our democracy if they really wanted to do. The question as always remains, how would Americans do that?  I also spoke with George Van Cleve on his book, Making a New American Constitution. He had a pretty simple idea. Americans would form a national conve...

In the last episode, I talked with Juliano Benvindo about the similarities between the January 6th Capitol Insurrection and the more recent attack on all three branches of government in Brasilia. It turns out that Brazil has the greatest level of inequality in Latin America. Inequality in North America has also reached historic highs. It was bad enough that America had imported over 300,000 slaves...

Events in America like the 2021 United States Capitol Insurrection are not unique to America. Brazil also suffered from a similar crisis on Jan 8, 2023.  The attack there, on all three branches of government in Brasilia, was largely the result of the former president's insistence the election had been rigged. His supporters believed him, and although he lost by almost 2 million votes, the cro...

Welcome to the Peaceful Political Revolution in American Podcast. In Season 1 Episode 2  last year, I spoke with Professor Emeritus of Democracy & Justice Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, Harvey J. Kaye. He is an award-winning author and editor of 18 books on history and politics -including Take Hold of Our History: Make America Radical Again and FDR on Democracy.  In S1 E2, w...

Welcome back to the Peaceful Political Revolution in America podcast.  I couldn't go any further without a discussion about Thomas Paine's Rights of Man. Not because it was historically significant, although it certainly was. But, because it lays the foundation for our nation and our identity as Americans, it is perhaps more relevant today than it was in 1792. I began this season with a...

Welcome to the Peaceful Political Revolution in America podcast. Bernie loves to point his finger at the elites, but who are they and where do they come from? It seems as if Bernie believes they possess a lot more influence than the rest of us.  But, what does our preamble mean if not that we the ordinary people in America are the ultimate source of power and law in America? So then, who were the...

Welcome back to the second season of the Peaceful Political Revolution in America Podcast, a series of conversations with America's top scholars, writers, journalists, and activists, on the topic of our Constitution. Thank you for tuning in to this podcast, and for your time, support, and continued interest in a subject that I personally find to be the most crucial topic of our time. Season o...

Welcome back to the Peaceful Political Revolution in American Podcast. So, how do Americans "shore up" their institutions of government? How do we strengthen our democracy and protect it from the anti-democratic forces that are currently on the rise? The recent book by George Van Cleve, "Making a New American Constitution" argues that today the 1787 Constitution is protecting A...

William Howell is the Sydney Stein Professor in American Politics at the University of Chicago, where he holds appointments in the Harris School, Department of Political Science, and College. Currently, he is the chair of the Department of Political Science , director of the Center for Effective Government , and co-host of Not Another Politics Podcast .  William has written widely on separation-of...

Any serious discussion about a peaceful political revolution in America would be incomplete if it did not include a conversation with today's guest. Sandford Levinson holds the W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr. Centennial Chair in Law.   Previously a member of the Department of Politics at Princeton University, he is currently Professor of Government at the University of Texas...

Welcome back to the Peaceful Political Revolution in America podcast. When you look around the world at different constitutions, and how political systems are formed, you quickly realize that they are all quite different, even amongst the democratic nations. Every democratic country does democracy a little differently, and the results vary just as much.  The conditions which lead to a new constitu...

(See transcript for the entire introduction) Welcome back to the Peaceful Political Revolution in American Podcast. Iceland has a really interesting history. You may know a bit about its scenic wonders if you ever watched Game of Thrones, but its political history is no less amazing. Iceland used to be part of Denmark, but in 1849, things began to change. In the 19th century, the Icelandic indepen...

Welcome to the Peaceful Political Revolution in America podcast. Democracy is under attack. The rise of Trumpism has created a lot of anxiety amongst those who believe in democracy, and for good reason. We have all witnessed the recent attack on our capital, on our electoral system, on our right to vote, on vaccine mandates, and on immigration.  There has been a sharp rise in white nationalist sen...

Welcome to the Peaceful Political Revolution in America podcast. Democracy is under attack. The rise of Trumpism has created a lot of anxiety amongst those who believe in democracy, and for good reason. We have all witnessed the recent attack on our capitol, on our electoral system, on our right to vote, on vaccine mandates, and on immigration.  There has been a sharp rise in white nationalist sen...

Welcome back to the Peaceful Political Revolution in America podcast. It has been pointed out on this podcast by more than a few people, that our Constitution is as much an economic or class document, as it was a political one. For starters, our colonial era Constitution was designed to protect the interests of the slavocracy, to favor the individual accumulation of wealth and property over the co...

Welcome back to the Peaceful Political Revolution in America Podcast. It looks like we could make some very real improvements to our political system. It is becoming more and more obvious that after 233 years, our Constitution could be significantly upgraded.  If we want to have an effective and democratic form of government we should probably be thinking about how to democratize our Constitution....