In Real Americans, Jared Goldstein provides an important corrective to our understanding of the role of constitutional nationalism in American political life. Since the start of the twentieth century, if not before, Americans have embraced a national identity based on the belief that what binds us together is a shared commitment to the universal principles of the Constitution. Scholars and leaders alike, Goldstein argues, have emphasized the good, democratic, and universalistic effects of that inclusive definition. All the while, the language of constitutional nationalism has in fact been used to justify violence, exclusion, and the power imbalances in American political life. As Goldstein argues, “rather than expressing a single conception of American identity, constitutional nationalism has provided a neutral and patriotic language for conveying a broad spectrum of nationalist visions” (p. 215). Some of those conceptions are inclusive and equitable, while others “have emphasized exclusion and hierarchy” (p. 215).

The book provides a series of exceptionally well-researched case studies of movements in American history that have used constitutional nationalism to justify or motivate exclusionary and violent policies. The first three chapters detail how the Ku Klux Klan, Christian nationalist movements, and nativist movements have each used a form of constitutional nationalism to recruit members, and to guide and justify their actions. It is striking to see, in great detail, just how frequently and persuasively constitutional rhetoric has been employed by movements that scholars traditionally think of as incompatible with constitutional principles. That, of course, is Goldstein’s point. Though the Klan emerged and dissipated in various forms between Reconstruction and today, each iteration held a defense of the Constitution as its driving mission. Of note, however, is the fact that the early Klan sought to defend the unamended “original constitution,” and not the Constitution as it existed at the time. What was central to their mission therefore was a rhetoric of constitutional defense utterly divorced from the actual Constitution itself. That theme continues through the remaining case studies where the constitutional principles and values being defended are frequently unrecognizable to constitutional scholars or even, in many cases, to the movement’s opponents. Goldstein’s first chapter makes a real contribution to our understanding of the central role that the Constitution has played in Klan members’ understanding of their own mission. It is a political history not often covered and of particular value today.

The second chapter highlights various efforts by Christian nationalist groups to reform the Constitution to bring it in line with what they saw as existing national identity. Christian nationalist groups “believed that putting Christian devotion in the Constitution would not only make the Constitution accurately reflect the nation’s Christian identity but also protect that identity” (p. 87). Here we see Goldstein’s claim that constitutional nationalism is both a tool of identity formation and central to Americans’ understanding of their identity. While the Christian amendment movement ultimately failed, Christian nationalist efforts during the Eisenhower era succeeded in amending the Pledge of Allegiance to include the phrase “under God,” and the “New Christian Right” has carried out similar efforts to defend what they see as the rightful interpretation of the Constitution’s Christian nature. Constitutional nationalism would seem to offer a much stronger defense against nativism—a national identity based on shared constitutional principles surely must prohibit exclusion of specific racial or ethnic groups from that identity. But Goldstein shows that, once again, constitutional nationalism provided myriad nativist movements with a ready-made constitutional argument for their exclusionary policies. While Christian nationalists sought to bring the Constitution in line with what they saw as the nation’s natural and historic Christian identity, nativist groups argued that only certain groups (typically “Anglo-Saxon”) were capable of embracing the constitutional values required of Americans. In this case it is the culture that needs to be brought in line with the Constitution and its intrinsic principles.

Chapter 4 takes a slightly different approach, highlighting the efforts of the Liberty League to defeat Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal through claims that its policies were unconstitutional and therefore un-American. Here Goldstein recognizes up front that “the liberty league made a strategic choice to place its focus on the Constitution” but insists that the league’s constitutional rhetoric still presents a complete philosophy of American identity based on acceptance and defense of constitutional principles. Goldstein further argues that scholars have previously misconstrued the importance of constitutional issues in the presidential election of 1936 because they have looked for constitutionalism in the form of arguments about Roosevelt and the Supreme Court. Scholars “imagine constitutional debates the way that lawyers do, as disputes over the meaning of text rather than disputes over national identity carried out in constitutional terms” (p. 163).

In chapter 5, Goldstein similarly demonstrates how investigating the darker side of constitutional nationalism might lead scholars to new and different conclusions about the proper role of constitutionalism more broadly in American political life. Here he takes on scholars who advocate “popular constitutionalism” and the general sense that the people should be trusted to interpret the constitution for themselves rather than relying always on Supreme Court rulings as if they were the word of God. Goldstein writes that “the Tea Party movement illustrates that ethnonationalist impulses are likely to be an inevitable part of popular constitutionalism and may undermine democratic values” (p. 181). The book’s sixth and final case study chapter is perhaps the most interesting from a normative or theoretical perspective. It highlights a variety of movements, cults, and militia groups that have all used constitutional nationalism to justify and in fact to motivate violent acts. As Goldstein writes, “it’s widely believed that constitutional nationalism is an especially benign form of nationalism” so that while ethnonationalism seems to lead obviously and inevitably to violence, civic or constitutional nationalism should be inherently more peaceful. In fact, he argues, “constitutional nationalism has frequently served to justify violence” and “constitutional nationalism can readily justify violence with the addition of just a few toxic ingredients” (p. 183).

Goldstein explicitly withholds judgement on whether constitutional nationalism is ultimately to be recommended or not. Yet it is hard, I think, to come away from the book with a sense that constitutional nationalism has been the inclusive, democratic best-case-scenario we often think of it as. Goldstein writes at the close of chapter 6 that “constitutional nationalism turns conflicts over national identity … into conflicts over the Constitution,” and “at the same time, it turns constitutional disputes into disputes over national identity” (pp. 213-214). One gets the sense that both national unity (or identity) and the Constitution are ultimately harmed by this symbiotic relationship. Goldstein notes in the conclusion that “constitutional nationalism has provided a neutral and patriotic language for conveying a broad spectrum of nationalist visions” (p. 215). The result of that neutrality has been a long history of constitutional rhetoric used for both inclusive and exclusive, peaceful and violent, democratic and ascriptive movements.

Real Americans adds tremendous value to our understanding of the status of the Constitution and constitutionalism in American political movements. The groups Goldstein meticulously investigates don’t often come up in works by scholars of American Political Development or American Political Thought, and this book shows that they should have a more central role in our understanding of how Americans think about their government and their Constitution. Given its empirical and historical focus, the book is, I believe, particularly useful when read alongside some of the more theory-driven works I think of as central to these questions of public constitutionalism and civic nationalism. Works by Rogers Smith, Elizabeth Beaumont, John Finn, and Noah Pickus all add to our understanding of how the public can, should, and should not employ constitutionalism in its political life.

I will highlight a few observations and open questions. First, I was struck again and again throughout the book by movement leaders’ seemingly shallow and narrow understanding of the Constitution. Goldstein uses the metaphor of a mirror to describe how each group finds its own needs reflected in the Constitution, but it was striking to see just how fundamentally their conceptions of the content of constitutional nationalism differed from one another and from parallel, often more inclusive, political movements. Generally, groups from the Klan to the NRA use the rhetoric of “constitutional principles”—specific institutions, power structures, specific rights, etc.—were all wholly absent from the “constitutionalism” these groups employed. Instead, upholding and defending “The Constitution” seemed to refer merely to a set of vague ideas about liberty. In the case of the Americanization and immigration restriction movements of the early twentieth century these values included “personal autonomy, individual liberty, and democratic self-government” (p. 111), but that was about as specific as things seemed to get for groups supposedly justifying their actions on constitutional grounds. I wonder whether opposing groups, who, as Goldstein points out, frequently also employed constitutional nationalism in defense of their interests, ever employed a more specific or, for lack of a better term, actually constitutional, rhetoric.

In the same vein, I found myself wishing for a more direct comparison of these exclusionary, and often violent movements with the countervailing political efforts that seemingly employed the similar rhetoric of constitutional nationalism for radically different ends. Goldstein mentions, for example, the constitutionalism of the Civil Rights movement taking place alongside segregationists’ calls for constitutional defense, and Franklin Roosevelt’s use of constitutional theory in defense of his New Deal. Many of those movements are well trodden ground for political science scholars (hence the ingenuity of Goldstein’s approach) but a more direct comparison might better allow scholars to answer important questions about whether constitutional nationalism ultimately does more harm than good.

That final point is, of course, the project I hope scholars continue to undertake. If there is a better alternative to constitutional nationalism (or to civic nationalism or any of the other principle-based tools for uniting diverse populations), might we be able to encourage or adopt it? If there is not, is awareness of the ways that constitutional nationalism has and can be used for exclusionary and violent purposes our only defense? Or would a more specific, legalistic, or democratic constitutional nationalism offer greater safety to the American public?