In Forbes yesterday, Meg Little Reilly paraphrases and quotes me:

American students are generally taught that the U.S. Constitution is unbreakable — which has been true, thus far—but this narrative reinforces the notion that if the Constitution were to fall, so too would the nation. For many Americans, everything that comes after political unrest is a “blank page,” according to [Peter] Levine. It’s a paradoxically fragile characterization of a country.

But this isn’t how civilizations or humans respond to political chaos. In reality, an existential challenge to the U.S. Constitution would trigger the next chapter, not the end. Preparing students with this more comprehensive understanding of human history could be constructive in November and long into the future.

Reilly also quotes my friend Emma Humphries from iCivics, who says, “Teachers are going to be a safe and steady presence for their students” in the aftermath of next week’s election, regardless of who wins and whether the outcome is resolved immediately.

I’d elaborate my comment as follows: Love it or hate it, the US Constitution is the oldest in the world. It suffered a catastrophic crisis in 1860, but the people who sought to preserve it won the ensuing Civil War. Although explicit amendments and subtler reinterpretations have changed the Constitution significantly, its stability has been evident. As a result, Americans are taught to assume that the document will always govern us–for the rest of our lives. We learn to equate the Constitution with the nation, as if it had constituted us as a people. Given this civic religion, a constitutional rupture sounds like the end of our history.

The prospect of a possible second Trump administration (which is, of course, very far from guaranteed) is causing people to mutter phrases like “Game over,” as if there would be no future for the republic if Trump wins and overrides constitutional limits.

I do fear a constitutional rupture or a period of deep constitutional instability, especially if the cause is an authoritarian presidency (no matter how competent). We could be much worse off than we are now, and the rest of the world is at risk as well. I do not want our system to break down.

However, it is an idiosyncratic US trait to view the Constitution as both fixed and fragile and to equate that document with the people and the nation. France has had five republics, two monarchies, two empires, a nascent commune, and a Quisling dictatorship during the period that our Constitution has stood.

French history is not enviable. More people were executed during the suppression of the Commune in 1871 than during the Terror of 1793-4, to name just two cruel episodes. Yet the French nation and people have demonstrated deep continuities, even when their formal system has changed.

Between the Second and Third Republics, Napoleon III ruled as a quasi-dictator. This was a betrayal of democratic rights and values, yet the republic in a deeper sense persisted. French history continued, and the French continued to influence their own state–as well, tragically, as the subjected peoples of their colonies. When Napoleon III won his rigged 1851 referendum, I doubt that many French people thought that the game was over. In fact, there were three more republics to come. And their history is far more typical than ours.

We Americans must be ready in case we have to use vocabulary and concepts that are familiar around the world: coups and auto-coups, oligarchs and juntas, Bonapartism, unrest and disorder, state media and oppositional media, states of emergency, security forces (and security-force defections), popular fronts, civil service strikes, general strikes, electoral boycotts, mass civil resistance, and constitutional restorations and re-foundings.

I devoutly that hope we experience none of these things, but if we do, it will be up to us to determine how they turn out. In that sense, the republic will still be ours, whether we can keep it consistently or not.

See also: the relevance of American civil religion to K-12 education; constitutional piety; how to respond, revisited.