The U.S. Constitution Is about ‘We the People’

Peter Sagal said he was all set to give a talk at this year’s January Series on highlights he’s experienced over the past 27 years as host of the popular National Public Radio show Wait, Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me.

But, as he stood at the podium in the Calvin University Covenant Fine Arts Center on Monday, Jan. 27, Sagal said he had changed course and decided to talk instead about the U.S. Constitution. Recent news stories, especially one about a TV celebrity going out and filming immigration raids in Chicago with law enforcement officials, had changed his mind, he said. 

Also compelling him, Sagal said, were recent moves by U.S. President Donald Trump that, some commentators say, threaten constitutional law, ranging from from banning birthright citizenship, which is in the 14th Amendment, to firing numerous federal officials for various reasons, to freezing trillions of dollars in federal spending.

“Because of what is happening right now in this country, I’ve found myself going back to the documentary series I did in 2012 about the U.S. Constitution,” said Sagal, who at that time was hired by the nonprofit Public Broadcasting Service to travel the U.S. and talk to people about the document.

“I’ve decided to talk about what I had learned in public school about the Constitution, what I found out what was mistaken about what I learned – and finally,” he said with a smile, “how to fix everything.”

For 30 minutes before a question-and-answer session, Sagal touched on the experiences he’d had in 2012 as he rode a motorcycle from town to town and, followed by a film crew, talked with Constitutional historians, social activists, pastors, a gun-rights advocate in Montana, former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, and people such as himself who, until he had hit the road, knew little about the reach and significance of the Constitution.

Along the way, Sagal said, he spoke with people in small towns and big cities about such topics as free speech in the digital age, abortion, same-sex marriage, legalizing marijuana, voting rights, separation of church and state, and presidential power in the post-9/11 world.

“When I started out, I found that hardly anyone, besides experts, knew much about what is in the Constitution and how important it is in history,” he said. “They pretty much thought that it allowed them to do whatever they were doing, and was against whatever other people were doing.”

On that last matter about people's opinions, he said, the Constitution took into consideration that the U.S., since its founding, has been made up of scores of people who argue, berate one another, and often hold significantly opposing views, making it very hard to gain consensus on any number of issues, especially who becomes president.

With this in mind, for instance, the office of the president was established to be held for a certain period, after which another election would be held. 

“We have had to obey, honor, and respect the fact that your person may be in for a time, but the next election can mean your person is out. So if your side doesn’t win . . . —well, we’ll catch you next time.”

The Constitution was written in 1787 and ratified in 1788, making it, said Sagal, the world’s longest surviving written charter for a democratic government. It established a division of power – checks and balances – between the executive, legislative, and legal branches of the government.

Its first three words, contained in the Preamble – “We the People” – are key and, Sagal added, affirm that the government of the United States was created to serve and protect all of its citizens.

“One expert I talked to called it the ‘hinge of history,’” said Sagal. “It was a dividing line between everything before and everything after it. After untold years of human civilizations, for the first time an enormous population voted to choose their own form of government. You can’t forget how big this was.”

Sagal said that one experience stands out and highlights for him the ways in which the Constitution is addressed and celebrated and allows people from various sides of the political divide to express themselves without being silenced. During his tour of the U.S. in 2012, he and his crew arrived one day in Appleton, Wis., to witness a rally by the group called the Tea Party, a fiscally conservative group within the Republican Party that opposed big government and especially federal spending.

“These people were very angry, especially about Barack Obama, who, they believed, was not like them and not a legitimate president,” said Sagal. “They believed Obama was taking away their benefits, their freedom, and their wealth.”

In talking to the leader of the rally and asking her about the Constitution, Sagal said, he found she knew very little about it, although she told him that the president was taking away their constitutional rights. With all the shouting and criticism over the course that they believed the U.S. was on, said Sagal, “it was one of the ugliest events that we had been to” while filming the documentary. At the end of the rally, he said, they played a video of country music star Lee Greenwood singing “God Bless America.”

The next day he and his crew attended a naturalization ceremony in downtown Chicago at which more than 100 people from dozens of countries around the world were sworn in as U.S. citizens.

“It was amazing,” said Sagal. “People had come to the U.S. for lots of reasons, fleeing oppression, seeking to be with family, seeking wealth. One guy we talked to said he came to America to have a good time.”

As they took the oath of allegiance, he said, “they didn’t need to know much about the Constitution. They just needed to believe in it. It is kind of a civic religion. The Constitution binds us together whether we realize it or not.”

And the thing that tied the two events together, said Sagal, was that at the end a large video screen showed Lee Greenwood singing that same song, “God Bless America.”

“It helped me to understand our country better with its imperfections and its possibilities and that we could move into the future facing whatever comes together,” said Sagal. 

Deeply troubling him, he added, was the historical break with tradition when people who believed Donald Trump, not Joe Biden, had won the 2020 election attacked the nation’s Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. “It was an explosion of rage and a departure from our history,” said Sagal.

Recent developments in Washington, D.C., have further troubled him as well, Sagal added as he wrapped up his talk by reflecting what he had learned about the Constitution while working on the documentary.

 “I learned that the Constitution is about ‘We the people’ – and that means everyone, rich or poor, young or old,” he said. “I’ve learned that whoever ‘we’ are and how we answer that question is what is important.”

In the face of current constitutional challenges in the U.S., he said, “We can’t give up. We can’t walk away. We must continue to fight to make sure we include everybody in the life we live in the U.S.”