I think daily about ways to make a better constitution. It's always been just an idealistic thought experiment for me. But this year I'm less sure it's irrelevant.
If the President creates a Constitutional crisis that has no viable remedy solely following Constitutional procedures, would that justify dissident states ratifying an updated Constitution?
In general, I strongly support following the existing Constitution.
But suppose the President abrogated elections. Then the US Constitution would not be being followed by the federal government, and attempting to follow the Constitution at the federal level would offer no achievable remedy to that situation. The only path forward to a Constitutional order would be via the states.
The staid option is an Article V convention, because it's an established idea. But this is for proposing amendments to a Constitution that is already being ignored (in the hypothetical). So it seems mis-aimed.
What we'd need, I suspect, is for a collection of large, powerful states to ratify a new Constitution. It would be ratified on its own terms, just like the current Constitution was ratified on its own terms, not by previous rules.
