THE CRISIS OF DEMOCRACY IN USA - UC Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky’s 2024 book No Democracy Lasts Forever examined how democracies collapse and give way to authoritarian regimes.

UC Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky’s 2024 book No Democracy Lasts Forever examined how democracies collapse and give way to authoritarian regimes. 

As part of the Berkeley Law Alumni Association’s new virtual Book Talk Series, Dean Erwin Chemerinsky discusses his latest book, No Democracy Lasts Forever, in a conversation exploring the fragility of constitutional democracy and the legal challenges facing our institutions today.

Recorded on June 30, 2025, this inaugural event launches a new series highlighting UC Berkeley Law faculty publications and ideas.

At this Berkeley Law event, Dean Erwin Chemerinsky discusses his most recent work, No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States (published in August 2024). The presentation explores the fragility of American democracy and how choices made in the drafting of the 1787 Constitution are now threatening the country’s institutions.

Main points discussed:

The Crisis of Democracy: Chemerinsky argues that the country is facing a profound institutional crisis, marked by the loss of popular trust in government (2:47) and political polarization unprecedented since Reconstruction (3:53).

Constitutional Failures: The author points to problematic elements in the original Constitution, such as:

Electoral College: Created out of distrust of the people and as a way to increase the political weight of slaveholding states (6:28).

Senate: Equal representation (two senators per state), which creates an extreme disparity in relation to the actual population of each state (10:16).

Life Tenure on the Supreme Court: The excessive concentration of power in judges who remain in office for decades, making appointments hostage to historical chance (18:12).

Difficulty of Amendment: The rigidity of Article V makes updating the document almost impossible, leaving the country governed by eighteenth-century rules in a modern and technological world (22:38).

Possible Solutions: The dean suggests reforms through statutes, such as transparency laws to prevent “dark money” in elections (52:16), and defends, as a plausible measure, a constitutional amendment establishing 18-year terms for Supreme Court justices (30:20).

The Post–January 20, 2025 Scenario: The author comments that recent events under Donald Trump’s presidency — such as the use of the Alien Enemies Act (39:55), the nationalization of the National Guard (40:44), and disregard for established norms — make the current scenario even more alarming than what was anticipated in his book (37:52).

How to act: Chemerinsky emphasizes that lawyers and citizens have the role of being “guards” of democracy, using the legal system to challenge unconstitutional actions (45:24) and promoting civic engagement (41:20).

THE PLAYBOOK OF A DICTATOR  - And the RULE OF LAW

Trump’s second term, Chemerinsky says, is following the playbook. 

”If one were to design a path to authoritarian rule, it would be what we have seen in the first weeks of the Trump administration,” he wrote earlier this year. One of the country’s most prominent legal scholars, Chemerinsky has been speaking out on the need to protect due process and the rule of law and to defend against attacks on academia and the media. 

Don't miss him as he returns to Commonwealth Club Word Affairs to talk about the most pressing threats to democracy—and the possible solutions.

July 24, 2025

Speakers

Erwin Chemerinsky

Dean, University of California, Berkeley School of Law; Author, No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States

Kirk O. Hanson

Senior Fellow of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, Santa Clara University; Member, Silicon Valley Advisory Council, Commonwealth Club World Affairs

Commonwealth Club World Affairs is a public forum. Any views expressed in our programs are those of the speakers and not of Commonwealth Club World Affairs.

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