WASHINGTON, D.C. Dec. 5 (DPI) – The son of the late Charles Krauthammer this week published an excerpt from an upcoming book, and the commentary – that the US Constitution has been astonishingly successful as the basis for a happy and prosperous people – was met with surprising vitriol by many readers.

In fact, many readers of the column – titled “The Enduring Miracle of The American Constitution” – came off as angry, bitter trolls unable or unwilling to forgive Charles Krauthammer for the principled positions he took in his 30 years as a political and social commentator, first in Time Magazine, and later in The Washington Post. Krauthammer died earlier this year of cancer at the age of 68.

“The view that we live in some kind of paradise because of our Constitution is a myth, pure and simple,” wrote on poster, whose comment was voted among the most popular.

Krauthammer’s son Daniel edited the upcoming book, based on his father’s commentaries over the years, and the excerpt published in The Washington Post this week focuses on how Americans today take the Constitution largely for granted:

Many things are miraculous about the U.S. Constitution. The first is that, somehow, on this edge of the civilized world two and a half centuries ago, there could have been a collection of such political geniuses as to have actually written it.

The second miracle is the substance of it — the way that the founders, drawing from Locke and Montesquieu and the Greeks, created an extraordinary political apparatus that to this day still works and that has worked with incredible success for nearly a quarter of a millennium.

But the third miracle, and the one that I think we appreciate the least, is the fact of the reverence that we have for it. This reverence is so deeply ingrained that we don’t even see it; we just think it’s in the air that we breathe. But it is extraordinarily rare. It exists in only a handful of countries. For almost all of the world, it is completely alien.

Krauthammer’s comments are relevant, even inspiring, especially given these times of hyper-partisanship.

There is something about the American spirit — about the bedrock decency and common sense of the American — that seems to help us find our way, something about American history that redeems itself in a way that inspires all. I would summarize it by quoting my favorite pundit, Otto von Bismarck. He was not known for his punditry, but he is famously said to have said: “God looks after children, drunkards, idiots and the United States of America.” I think He still does. I hope He still does.

But a shocking number of readers reacted as though Krauthammer was a foreign agent with sinister intent in his message – a message that, by all measures, is virtually unassailable.

The most popular comments on WashingtonPost.com suggest, though, that many can’t get past their partisan hostilities:

Please!  I read many of Charles’s articles before he died and I don’t need for him to preach to me beyond the grave.  His idea that the constitution is somehow from God begs the history of its forebearing documents.  And as for the constitution restraining anyone, we’ve yet to see if can restrain a fascist like Trump. “bedrock decency and common sense” seems to have disappeared from several million citizens who refused (and probably still refuse) to understand what a ogre Trump is.  Yes, I hope the basic foundations of our democracy withstand a man who cares only for himself and his wallet.  When we successfully pass that mark, I’ll pretend to like Charles again.

The Constitution turned a confederation into a federal system with a bicameral legislature borrowed from the Brits and an elected monarch.  It was pretty good for 200+ years ago, but it’s not exactly magical stuff.   The president probably has too much power, while the failure to anticipate political parties contributes to the dysfunctional system that we have today.

Constitutionalism as described here is wrong. We assume the principle of three co-equal branches of government comes from the Constitution. It does not. The Constitution is a living document molded to historical developments and contingencies. In 1803, Marbury vs Madison, the Supreme Court asserted its authority for judicial review to strike down a law as unconstitutional for the first time. By that decision, the Supreme Court made itself into a co-equal branch.
(Reagan did not revive the country. He falsely revised history.)

This preposterous article is given the lie every day we allow 70% of the Senate to be elected by 30% of our population, every time we overrule a popular Presidential election with the electoral college with the disaster which follows (failure to deal with the threat of al Quaeda, the subsequent Iraq War and Dump), and every time we create a partisan court and allow the corruption of our institutions (failure to hold hearings for Merrick Garland and failure to fully investigate devastating charges against a partisan hack like Kavanaugh). The Constitution was not written to withstand the onslaughts of obscenely rich individuals and even more obscenely powerful corporations. It was definitely a gentleman’s agreement which enshrined slavery as the price of adoption and which put in place many barriers to franchise. The view that we live in some kind of paradise because of our Constitution is a myth, pure and simple. We have instead a frozen republic, unable to address the modern world, our multi-racial makeup and our state by state demographics. However, given the dangers which a Constitutional Convention would bring given the powers that be, we will have to suffer along with it for many years to come. We will have many opportunities to test its design in the coming years as climate change ravages and weakens the country and as fewer and fewer people share in the wealth produced by our lightly regulated capitalist economy.