Constitutional Idolatry and Democracy: Challenging the Infatuation with Writtenness

Abstract

This thought-provoking book by Brian Christopher Jones entitled Constitutional Idolatry and Democracy begins by retelling the moment when, during the highly disputed election period of 2016 in the United States of America, an elector waived his pocket-sized US Constitution before Donald Trump. The gesture was a symbol. A silent but taunting manifestation against the president-to-be, and his supposed lack of understanding of the nation’s ‘most sacred values and principles’ (p. 1). The whole scene and the events that followed (including the spike in sales of pocket-version constitutions) were an expression of a deeper sentiment common to, but not exclusive of, the United States of America: constitutional idolatry.