Bring back election cake! And other lessons learned from “Living Constitutionally”

Note: Text has been edited and does not match audio exactly.

Aaron Schwartz: Hey there, I'm Audible Editor Aaron Schwartz, and I'm here speaking with journalist and author A.J. Jacobs. In 2007, Jacobs published his New York Times bestseller The Year of Living Biblically, which chronicled his attempt to live his life according to the rules laid out in both the Old and New Testaments for a full year. Now, Jacobs is releasing his new title that in a way serves as a follow-up, or maybe better put, a close relative to Living Biblically, entitled The Year of Living Constitutionally, in which he takes on the same challenge, but this time, following the rules of the US Constitution. A.J., thank you for joining me.

A.J. Jacobs: Thank you, Aaron. I'm delighted to be here. I love audiobooks. I love Audible. So thrilled to talk about it.

AS: That's awesome, because I was curious, at the beginning of the book you set up in the preamble—well, I guess I should let listeners know that the book is set up, the chapters are referred to as articles.

AJ: Sure, like in the Constitution. I figured I had to.

AS: But in the preamble, you talk about the guidelines that you set up for this year, your use of technology, what you did allow yourself to use, what you didn't allow yourself to use. For anyone who's listened to The Year of Living Biblically or Drop Dead Healthy, they know how deeply you're willing to immerse yourself into these experiences, like I'd say even a few steps beyond a Daniel Day-Lewis level of dedication to get into character. I should also note, you're also wearing a tricorne hat as we speak right now.

AJ: I commit to the bit.

AS: I was wondering if you could briefly run down the guidelines that you set up for yourself.

AJ: I would love to. Just to give the background, as Aaron said, I wrote a book several years ago called The Year of Living Biblically where I tried to understand the Bible by actually living it. So, walking in the footsteps of our, or sandal steps, of our forefathers. So, I did the 10 Commandments, but I also grew a beard, had the robe, with the idea that, like you said, method acting. This is sort of method writing. And thank you for the Daniel Day-Lewis comparison. That is huge.

I decided now is the time to do a sequel on the Constitution because I, first of all, knew so little about the Constitution. I had never read it, and it's only four pages. They're big pages, but I never read it. So, I thought, "All right, I'm going to try to understand it by getting into the minds of the Founding Fathers and trying to follow it as literally as possible, using the tools and mindset from the 1780s.” So, we're talking carrying a musket and writing with a quill pen. No social media, it was all quill pens, handing them out on the street, and quartering a soldier—meaning not, like, chopping him up, but letting him stay in the apartment.

"The Constitution is not monolithic. It contains amazing, inspiring parts, and then parts that are archaic, and parts that are all about liberation and freedom and equality, and then parts that sort of are meant to keep power in oligarchy."

And it was an amazing year. I loved it. I felt I learned so much. It was like a crash course in the Constitution, and I feel empowered now because when you read the news, it is so much about what does the Constitution mean. And now I feel I have a better handle, and hopefully, I'm able to impart that empowerment to the reader. So, the rules were, whenever possible, I did try to use the tools from the 18th century. So, quills, which by the way, I love. I love a quill because there's no dings and pings, and you can actually concentrate and go a little deeper than when you're just texting with your thumbs. So, I used quills. I used candles. There's ink all over my office. And I tried to cook in an 18th-century style.

Now, that said, I did use indoor plumbing, and sometimes I would have to use modern technology to get the old tech. Like, I ordered all of my quill pens over Amazon, so I'm embarrassed to say I didn't go out to the farm and pluck them off. I also bought my musket, my 18th-century authentic musket, over ye old internet. But as often as I could, I tried to go back.

AS: I'm curious, did audiobooks fit into that equation at all, or was that off the table for a year?

AJ: I did listen to audiobooks. I did a lot of my research that way, and my rationalization is oral presentation is very 18th-century. In fact, the Constitution was meant to be read aloud to crowds, and the Declaration of Independence. That's how they envisioned people would go on to meeting houses and read it out loud. So that's why, I think, it's okay that I listened to audiobooks during my 18th century.

AS: Oh, happy to hear that. I'm glad we're continuing a centuries-old tradition here.

AJ: Exactly.

AS: Speaking of, I got a real kick out of when you, in the early chapters, or early articles, when you went to go vote, and you announced your vote in front of everybody.

AJ: That was quite embarrassing. A lot of it was embarrassing, but hopefully, towards a greater good of learning and advising. But yes, that was the way they voted in the late 1700s or early 1800s. The secret ballot was very seldom used. Instead, you voted by voice. You would go to the polls and say, "I want to vote for John Adams," or whoever you were voting for. So, I tried to replicate that, and it did not go well. The poll worker was like, "What are you doing? You can't talk now. You can't say that." It's almost taboo. So, she sent me to vote in secret.

AS: I'm curious what the most difficult change was for you to make in all of this?

AJ: Well, there are a couple of difficult parts. One was, first of all, just writing with a quill pen. I loved it, but it was hard. And you're used to sending something off and getting something back, so this is all about making you a more patient person, which I think is a good skill. But you would send off a letter and I would be like, "Well, where's my notification that it was read at 3:57 PM." No, you don't even know if the person got it. So that was a challenge.

Carrying a musket on the Upper West Side of New York, big challenge. Because it was real, and I was carrying it because that's my Second Amendment right. Some people, not happy. They would move to the other side of the street. Some people were surprising, they said, "Oh, that's so cool." And it did come in handy. Once, I arrived at the coffee shop, my local coffee shop, at the same time as another customer, and he said, "You go first. I am not going to tussle with a guy holding a musket." But it is, yeah, it is a very awkward situation.

Just one other example is my family life, not great. Not great because the 1790s Constitution was, it was a sexist society. So, it was considered perfectly constitutional to deprive women of their rights. For instance, married women could not sign contracts. They were treated like children. And my wife owns a business and she signs several contracts a day with her clients. And I was like, "Well, maybe I should try to take that over since that is what the Constitution in the 1790s would say." And that was a disaster because she's so much better at finances than I am, and I was fired after literally an hour.

AS: You know, it's interesting you bring up that point because, first of all, I think I maybe learned more about the Constitution listening to this audiobook than I think I ever knew. For instance, we're in Newark, New Jersey, right now, where Audible's headquartered, and it was so interesting to hear that New Jersey was the first state to grant women the right to vote, in 1790. And they overturned it in 1809 because of other states' pressure. But there were so many things that I was so surprised at learning. And I was wondering what was the most surprising thing you picked up?

AJ: I love that. Well, yes, first of all, congratulations, New Jersey, for briefly having the courage to let women vote, even if they took it back. There was so much surprising. One part was, reading the Constitution, it was like emotional whiplash because some parts were so inspiring. So, like the Preamble, which I did know partly from Schoolhouse Rock, the "We the people." Even that phrase itself is so inspiring, "We the people," and the fact that back then, we the people was the white male people, but we have fought, or people have fought, to make sure that it encompasses more than just that group. But at the same time, you read on, and there are parts that are so archaic, you are like, "Well, this seems like it's from another century," which it is! It's from the 18th century.

So, there's a part, you're reading along in Article 1 Section 8, and it talks about Congress granting citizens “a letter of marque and reprisal.” And I didn't know what that was, so I looked it up. Basically, legalized piracy. It is the government can allow citizens to be a privateer and go out and fight the enemy and take the booty. And this is how we won the Revolutionary War, that privateers captured 2,000 British boats, and they would take the sherry for themselves or the cannons or the uniforms. And without that, we might not have won. But the fact is, it's still in the Constitution even though it hasn't been used since 1815. And I thought, as part of my project, to get back to what was the original Constitution's meaning, I actually did apply to Congress for a letter of marque and reprisal. And I met with a congressman. At first, he was very enthusiastic. Then when I explained to him exactly what it entailed, he was like, "Hmm, that might be more difficult, letting you go out in your friend's fishing boat to fight the enemy. Might not go over well."

The Constitution is not monolithic. It contains amazing, inspiring parts, and then parts that are archaic, and parts that are all about liberation and freedom and equality, and then parts that sort of are meant to keep power in oligarchy. So, it is a fascinating document. It's a wonderful document. Overall, it has served us well, I believe. But it's also complicated.

AS: A lot of my closest friends from growing up have very different political ideologies than myself. We have arguments from time to time, and when the Constitution is in the news, and often I'd make the analogy that following that document to a T is like buying a new TV and then trying to set it up using the owner's manual for a 1960s TV. But that may be better put by Ezra Klein's metaphor that you use in the book about the boat. On the other side of that, there are so many important articles and amendments that have saved lives and protected people who were previously unprotected. So, I'm curious, do you think that there is a right way we should be utilizing this document?

AJ: I love what you said, first of all. I love the TV analogy. I think that's a great one. And also, I love what you say about seeing it with nuance and seeing there are parts that are so important to keep, and then parts that are archaic. To oversimplify, there's two big ways to interpret the Constitution right now. There's originalism, which is practiced by several conservative justices on the Supreme Court where the most important thing by far is what the words meant when they were ratified in 1790 or whenever the amendments were ratified. Then there's the other side, sometimes called living constitutionalism or pluralism, and that says, "Yes, pay attention to the original meaning, but it's been 230 years, we've got to evolve the meaning of some of these things."

And to give you just one quick example, you've got the 14th Amendment, which promises equal protection of the law to everyone. Now, when that was ratified in, I believe it was 1868, that only applied to men, and they never thought of it as applying to women. So, does it apply to women? If you're a true, hardcore originalist, even Antonin Scalia said this 14th Amendment does not apply to women. It doesn't apply to gay marriage. There's no equal protection for gay marriage.

"When I actually did my own Constitution for my family, I included a Bill of Rights, but also a Bill of Responsibilities, which I think would've been in the original Constitution if it weren't so taken for granted that you would help your community, whether it was helping to put out a fire with a bucket or serving in the militia."

My feeling is, I am a fan of looking at the original meaning, but in addition to other aspects of the Constitution. To use another metaphor, not the TV or the boat, what about a pair of pants? The Constitution's kind of like a pair of pants with an elastic waistband. And you want it to have some give. You don't want to have total give because you want to keep those rights that you mentioned, like freedom of speech and equal protection. But you also want it to have some stretchability. You don't want the Constitution to be a pair of skinny jeans where you gain two pounds and it splits open.

AS: Yeah, and it's only for certain people.

AJ: Exactly [laughs]. Yeah, I cannot wear skinny jeans.

AS: As you say that, it's reminding me, I grew up Jewish, I've read your work and I've watched your TED Talks. I know you grew up Jewish as well, but I think you refer to it as, like, Olive Garden Jewish.

AJ: That's it. I am Jewish in the same way Olive Garden is Italian. Not very. Exactly.

AS: There's something very almost like rabbinical [in this] kind of approach. Judaic studies are so much about taking old texts and recontextualizing them. It's like using old text as a living document.

AJ: I 100 percent agree. I mean, the parallels between The Year of Living Biblically and The Year of Living Constitutionally, I thought were striking. That was part of why I did it. There's the people who say, "We gotta get back to the original meaning," and then the people who say, "No, let's wrestle with it and evolve it." I actually talked to some Jewish scholars of the Constitution. And they said that it is, like you pointed out, a very rabbinical way of looking at it. In fact, rabbis will tell you, when they are trying to interpret the Bible and the Torah, they do not try to go back to the original. They do not try to get in the mind of God because that would be overreaching and not your place. So, they would not interpret the Constitution by trying to get into the mind of James Madison. They would try to use other interpretive techniques, like the ones you said, where it evolves and changes and how does it fit into today.

AS: There's a moment in the book where you point out, I think a couple moments, where you mentioned that there seemed to be more of an emphasis back then on the idea of, like, the "common good” and doing what was right for the community, which on the surface, to me, sounds like probably the right approach to building a society. You know, there was a lot less talk of individual freedoms, which these days seems to be a major preoccupation of both sides of the aisle. And maybe for good reason because certain politicians create their platforms based on stripping certain people of their rights. But I couldn't help but think that the idea of community must've been a lot easier to center things around when there were just fewer people in general.

AJ: That's true.

AS: And I know you summarized this at the end of your book, you have your key takeaways, your 10 takeaways, or the Bill of Takeaways, I believe you referred to it.

AJ: Yes, exactly, good memory.

AS: But for listeners who maybe like to get a better idea going into this book, do you think that there's any way that we could make our way back to thinking about the common good again?

AJ: I love the question, and I do. I am optimistic, with an asterisk, which I'll tell you in a moment. But what you said is true. The 18th century, we don't want to go back to it because, in many ways, it was terrible. It was sexist, racist, smelly, dangerous, homophobic. But at the same time, there are some notions that I think are worth looking at again, reviving, and one of them is what you just said where you think about the common good. You balance your individual rights, which are so important, with thinking about what's good for the community. So, in addition to rights, you have responsibilities. So, when I actually did my own Constitution for my family, I included a Bill of Rights, but also a Bill of Responsibilities, which I think would've been in the original Constitution if it weren't so taken for granted that you would help your community, whether it was helping to put out a fire with a bucket or serving in the militia.

So, I am a big fan of getting back to a little more of that balance. And I do think that we can do it. It's not insurmountable. It just involves thinking about when you make a decision, thinking about others. And Ben Franklin, who's my favorite Founding Father, and one of the many things I love about him is he has in his autobiography, he lists his day, like hour by hour. And the first thing he does when he wakes up is he says, "What good shall I do today?" I thought that was great. And I wrote it in my quill pen, and I put it above my desk as a sort of moral north star, "What good can I do today?" When my Instagram post doesn't get as many likes as I want, you know, I’m starting to get outraged, I go, "You know what? Is this really what I'm here for? No, let me just look at that saying, 'What good can I do today?' and try to do that."

AS: You know, I think my favorite thing about Ben Franklin is the fact that he wrote an essay about farting.

AJ: It's fantastic. And it's actually a good idea that can now be done with technology because it was all about developing some way to make farts smell good. Again, what good can he do today? Now, with CRISPR and gene splicing, you could make farts smell like lavender, whatever you want it to. I mean, he was, of course, again—

AS: Ahead of his time.

AJ: Ahead of his time.

AS: In more ways than one, yeah [laughs]. I'm sometimes surprised at how much faith the Founding Fathers maybe put into the idea that we'd apply common sense and, like, basic human goodness to our lawmaking and the way we treat one another. And after stepping away from all this, I'm curious, how do you think the Founding Fathers would feel about how we've implemented this Constitution into our lives in 2024?

AJ: Well, certainly mixed feelings. Also, it depends on the Founding Fathers. They were very different.

AS: True, true.

AJ: But some things, I think they would be overjoyed. The fact that America still exists. They thought it might collapse at any time. On the other hand, they would be shocked at several aspects of society. One, that we don't think about the common good as much. Two, the president, the power of the president is so far beyond what the Founding Fathers envisioned. They envisioned the Congress as the number one branch. It was the Congress. That's what you read about on the front page, not the president.

I love reading the notes from the Constitutional Convention because there are all these crazy ideas that were shot down, but in an alternate universe, a couple of them voted a different way, we would have three presidents, because when the idea of having a single president came up, several of the delegates said, "What? Are you crazy? But we just fought a war to get rid of a monarch, and you're just going to have another one person in charge. Let's have a committee of three people as president. Or 12."

Ben Franklin had once endorsed 12 people, and the idea was let's put constraints on the power of the president. The powers of war were split up. Congress declared war, and the president executed, decided where to invade. That has gone by the wayside. The president is now mostly in charge of every aspect of war, with some exceptions. So, they would be shocked by the way we have set up. It's not the balance of power that they envisioned, and same with the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has so much more power than the founders envisioned. They would not recognize what was going on in the Supreme Court right now.

AS: I imagine they'd also be a little bit surprised at how little rum punch we drink during the day.

AJ: So true. They were such huge day drinkers, and it's really quite shocking. And in fact, that was one of my favorite parts of the book was the idea of trying to regain the festive nature of Election Day. I love it. That was something we do need to get back, because it was this new right. And the people—at least the constrained number of people who had the privilege—were in awe that they could vote. And it was like it was a party. You had rum punch. You had election cake, which people brought to the polls and handed out to neighbors. So, I was like, "All right, here's one specific thing we can bring back, the election cake."

So, I actually started a movement over Facebook—which is not 18th-century, sorry—and I got people in all 50 states to bake election cakes for last November's elections, and it was one of the highlights of my book and my work life because people were so depressed and so frustrated, and even this tiny, little action of positivity gave them the feeling of power. So, I'm doing it again this coming November. If people want to bake election cakes, please get in touch with me. My website is ajjacobs.com, and I would love to hear from you. We had hundreds last time. I'd love to see thousands of election cakes.

AS: Well, you heard it here first, folks. Ajjacobs.com. You know, before we wrap up, I wanted to ask you, this isn't your first time narrating but I just wanted to hear about what narrating this book was like for you.

AJ: I love narrating my books, and I work hard. I do work hard at it because I try to put energy into it, and so it's not just the monotone. And it stretches my acting muscles, which are not that bulky to begin with. I have quotes from James Madison, so I try to take on a little more of a tony, I don't know, plummy, whatever-it-is voice for James Madison.

"I got people in all 50 states to bake election cakes for last November's elections, and it was one of the highlights of my book and my work life because people were so depressed and so frustrated, and even this tiny, little action of positivity gave them the feeling of power."

It's a challenge because I have a very loud stomach that growls a lot. So, we have to often retake lines because my stomach. And my producer, Scott Sherratt at Random House Audio, is awesome. And he just won an Audie for his work with Bono, which had more music than my book. My book has a little. I sang the original “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” The other thing he said is, I'm not alone in having the stomach growling. Like, every author who reads has bodily noises because we're humans. So, if you go back to the raw tapes, you could hear Joyce Carol Oates' farts or, I don't know, John Cheever's burps. So that could be a very interesting historical document, a collected book.

AS: Yeah, I'm sure John here in the studio knows exactly what you're talking about. Looking at him right now, he's nodding [laughs]. Were you wearing the tricorne hat when you were recording?

AJ: I did. For my projects, I do like to dress the part because the outer affects the inner. So, for the Bible, I wore a robe, and for this one, I had my tricorne and my regimental coat and my stockings. It was fun. It was time-consuming. It's time-consuming to put on little sock belts so your socks don't fall down.

AS: The sock belts, yeah. To wrap up, I just wanted to ask if there's anything you're listening to these days that you would like to recommend?

AJ: Oh, that's a good question. Well, interestingly, I bought Surrender by Bono to support my producer, which is amazing. I bought Modern Times by Paul Johnson because sometimes I like those big surveys. I mean, they are sometimes flawed, and they leave things out, but I also listened-slash-read to Ben Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson. So, I would listen, and then if I were at home, I might read and then go back to listening. So, I'm a fan of that, sort of the double. So yeah, I am a fan of listening.

AS: Well, thank you, A.J., for taking the time to speak with me. I really appreciate it. I really enjoyed this book, and I think everybody will. You did such a great job narrating it, and it was just really fun to listen to and very educational.

AJ: Ah, well, I love to hear that. Thank you, Aaron. That is a huge compliment. Thank you, and that was what I was trying for. I wanted to make it both entertaining and educational and empowering, so I'm delighted that, at least for you, it worked.

AS: Well, you nailed it. Thank you. And listeners, you can get A.J. Jacobs' The Year of Living Constitutionally, available on Audible now.