I firmly believe that if any president of the United States has ever deserved to be impeached, it would be Donald J. Trump.  He has made high crimes and misdemeanors an art form, primarily those crimes declared to be against humanity at Nuremburg, and he has also rendered the Constitution of the United States a nonsensical decoration.  The latter has impacted the entire system of governance, especially the ill-named Department of Justice.  His claim that he is responsible to no authority other than his own sense of what is moral defines a “dictator”, not in the classical Roman sense, but in the sense of a Führer, perhaps reflective of his German ancestry.  Having said that however, the concept of impeachment has been rendered an abusive and incoherent political football, and not just by the Democratic Party’s two ludicrous impeachments of Mr. Trump during his first term of office but by the equally ludicrous impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton by the Republicans in the 1990s and even by the impeachment of Andrew Johnson following the Civil War.  It is a case of maniacal boys and girls somehow elected to the United States House of Representatives who have been crying wolf for so long that the wolves have taken over.  And if Mr. Trump deserves impeachment for his unconscionable and unconstitutional actions during his second term, what of the Congress that on, a bipartisan basis, has refused to assume its responsibilities, not only with respect to war powers, but with respect to real governmental oversight.  Today’s government oversight hearings are merely polarizing public spectacles of the bread and circus variety, without the bread.  And our judiciary, meant to assure that the foregoing would not occur is and since at least 2013 has been a politicized mess with no respect for laws.

On April 10 of this year, 2026, retired Judge Andrew Napolitano, formerly a conservative commentator on Fox News, published an interesting article[1].  Interesting not only because of its substance but because of its style, one reminiscent of Martin Luther’s ninety-five theses and of the method employed by Socrates millennia ago to enlighten his pupils.  It was entirely comprised of questions.  Questions worth reading and questions on which profound reflection is merited.  Questions, in a sense, somehow related to my introductory observations.  The realities reflected in my introductory paragraph and in Judge Napolitano’s article[2] make two things obvious: neither our democracy nor our constitution are functional.  Sacred, yes, just as “Holy Scripture” is sacred to many, but not to be taken seriously.  And they’re not taken seriously.  Neither Holy Scriptures nor our current Constitution, one rendered incoherent through sometimes idealistic but ill-conceived amendments[3].

So, what’s to be done? 

My suggestion, one I and others have made for over half a century, is one political parties of all stripes find anathema[4], the one thing they all agree cannot take place, a new constitutional convention.  They abhor the concept because they uniformly agree that the People assembled as the principal and primary constituent, assembled as “We the People”, cannot be trusted, regardless of platitudes such as “sovereignty resides in and emanates from the People”.  However, our Founding Fathers did provide a mechanism for such an eventuality, one they provided in the Constitution itself.  In relevant part, Article V of the United States Constitutions states “… on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, [Congress] shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which … shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes as Part of this Constitution when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress….”. 

As of early 2026, the movement for a state sponsored constitutional convention, one technically known as an Article V convention, had gained significant momentum with the project having been adopted by legislatures in 20 states. To trigger the first-ever Article V convention in U.S. history, 34 states must pass “matching resolutions on the same topic”, 14 more need to do so.  The following are the most likely 14 states to join the project: Iowa (passed in one chamber previously); Wyoming (passed in one chamber previously); North Carolina (passed in one chamber previously); South Dakota (passed in one chamber previously); Virginia (passed in one chamber previously); New Hampshire (passed in one chamber previously); New Mexico (passed in one chamber previously); Kentucky (being actively targeted during 2026); Ohio (being actively targeted during 2026); Pennsylvania (being actively targeted during 2026); New Jersey (being actively targeted during 2026); Washington (being actively targeted during 2026); Illinois (being actively targeted during 2026); and, Minnesota (considered a swing state for the movement).

A real constitution, one binding and enforced and reflective of the popular will, one percolated from below rather than imposed from above or by corrupt elites would go a long way towards depolarizing our divided citizenry and making our government functional rather than dysfunctional[5]. A constitution crafted to make truth in the media a viable option and to make non-interference by foreign powers in United States politics a binding rule, one that prioritized government expenditures so that the “Common Welfare” came first and foreign intervention was banned (as George Washington once urged), one that depoliticized the judiciary.  One resolving the issue of whether or not the United States should remain true to its immigrant roots or discard them and which democratically resolved the issue of whether the United States should return to its federal premises or become a unitary state, perhaps a bottoms up unitary state with most power focused in county governments.  All of the foregoing would go a long way towards achieving and maintain the so called “American Dream”.

Of course, a constitution that does not reflect the popular political culture is useless as the Weimer Republic which gave rise to the Nazis made clear.  Our political culture also needs a great deal of work.  A return to empathy reflective of the so called Golden Rule and to mutual respect recognizing the value of differences of opinion, rather than their ridicule.

I wonder which of the two would be more difficult to attain: constitutional or cultural reform. 

And I wonder if we are not already past a point of cultural no return?
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

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[1] Napolitano, Andrew P. (2026):  “Killing & Indifference”, Consortium News, Volume 31, Number 98 — Friday, April 10, 2026 available at https://consortiumnews.com/2026/04/10/killing-indifference/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=19e366d7-5937-4c7b-86ee-1a1624d04b5c.

[2] The main difference between Judge Napolitano’s perspective and mine is that he still believes the current United States Constitution is viable.  I do not.

[3] Calvo Mahé, Guillermo (2023):  “Motley Constitutionalism: a labyrinthine aphorism”; Medium, July 30, 2023 available at https://guillermo-calvo-mahe.medium.com/motley-constitutionalism-a-labyrinthine-aphorism-9270c689f12d.

[4] And that includes third parties like the Libertarian and Green parties and many others.

[5] The term “dysfunctional” is not synonymous with non-functional, it implies functionality but in pain.  “Non-functional might well be significantly better as the late Judge, Gideon J. Tucker noted in a 1866 decision when he wrote “No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session”, a quote later made famous by the late, great author and social commentator, Mark Twain and comedian Will Rogers.