While the U.S. Constitution is constantly invoked to justify how the country should be governed, it actually provides very few specifics on how that should be done. Instead, the designed ambiguities of the document require the imaginative powers of its citizenry to interpret it and decide which laws should be implemented and how they should be enforced.

Episode guest is George Thomas, professor of American Political Institutions at Claremont McKenna College. Produced with the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies and the Salvatori Center at Claremont McKenna College.