Unveiling Gödel's Loophole: A threat to US democratic foundations?

The current situation in the United States is undeniably polarizing. Despite its long-standing democracy, there is growing concern about its potential abrupt end.

The United States Constitution is the cornerstone of American democracy. Effective since 1789, it’s the oldest government charter that still continues to work to this day.

However, as commendable as it is, what would happen if someone found a way to exploit the US Constitution for very dark intentions, such as establishing an authoritarian regime?

In 1947, Austrian-born mathematician and philosopher Kurt Gödel (second to the right in the picture) was studying the United States Constitution when he stumbled upon an inner contradiction that could legally turn American democracy into a dictatorship.

Gödel had lived through the German annexation of Austria and the Second World War and was concerned that his new home would follow the mistakes of the old country.

According to The New Yorker, Gödel shared his loophole with his friends Albert Einstein and Oskar Morgenstern. Both men asked the Austrian mathematician to not make too much noise about it.

And what was the constitutional loophole that worried Gödel that the United States could become a totalitarian state? Nobody is certain, since he nor friends left any specific hints about it.

For many years, many academics have speculated exactly what legal exploit was Gödel referring to, and here are some possibilities:

In a 2012 paper, University of Central Florida professor Enrique Guerra-Pujol speculates that Gödel was most likely referring to Article V of the US Constitution, which focuses on how amendments are proposed and ratified.

In theory, Article V applies to itself, meaning that the requirements of proposing and making effective an amendment could gradually be made easier, becoming more vulnerable to being exploited in the wrong hands.

According to Slate, other elements that Gödel could have considered that could be exploited by a would-be American strongman include gerrymandering, the electoral college, and the system of presidential pardons.

But that could never happen in the current-day United States, right? Well, we will probably know when it’s too late to do anything about it.

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