The United States is currently in a period of constitutional instability. Formally, the Constitution has not been amended in this century. But the way the system of government works in practice — what constitutional theorists call the “small-c constitution” — has changed significantly. In 2000, the small-c constitution featured widespread and seemingly settled commitments to a shared set of assumptions about elections, norms of governance, and the rule of law. In the last decade, that framework has unraveled substantially. This class will explore the process by which the small-c constitution that existed more or less from 1975 to 2015 has since been challenged and transformed. Matters to be examined include the turn-of-the-millennium conditions that laid the seeds for later change; the role and limits of traditional checks and balances; the significance of officials’ willingness or unwillingness to be guided by law and to exercise other forms of self-restraint; the appearance of political violence condoned by officeholders; the ways in which republics devolve into other forms of government; and the efforts of citizens, including especially lawyers, to combat threats to democracy and the rule of law.