The Two Constitutions

As race riots spread across the U.S. in late May and early June, the country fell into two warring camps. This would not have surprised readers of Christopher Caldwell’s controversial The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties, which made the New York Times bestseller list as soon as it was published in January. Caldwell places the Civil Rights Act of 1964 at the heart of the country’s recent polarization. Although it ended racial segregation in the American South, it did so by creating powerful new governing structures that elites have used to circumvent democracy. That is what the increasingly rancorous partisan battles of the past several decades have been about. Here is an excerpt.

Not long after he left the White House, Bill Clinton gave what is still the best description of the fault lines that run through American politics. “If you look back on the ’60s and on balance you think there was more good than harm, you’re probably a Democrat,” he said. “If you think there was more harm than good, you’re probably a Republican.”

The Two Constitutions

What could he have meant by that? The con ...