“The Constitution is neither a left-wing or right-wing document. It is ultimately about how to hold a society together.” American political life today is fractured and splintered, but many still yearn for unity. How can we find social cohesion amid sharply felt differences? Political scientist Yuval Levin wants to bring us back to our founding document: the American Constitution. After all, the Preamble identifies as its primary purposes to “form a more perfect union” and “establish justice.” Yuval Levin is the director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, where he also holds the Beth and Ravenel Currie Chair in Public Policy. His latest book is American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation—and Could Again. He’s founder of National Affairs, senior editor at The New Atlantis, a contributing editor of National Review, and contributing opinion writer at the New York Times. Levin joins Mark Labberton to discuss the US Constitution’s purpose in fostering social cohesion and unity; the malfunction of Congress to build coalitions across disagreement; the values of social order and social justice; the fragility of democracy; the difference between a contract and a covenant; and the American aspiration to live up to the covenantal relationship and mutual belonging implied in “We the people.” About Yuval Levin Yuval Levin is the director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he also holds the Beth and Ravenel Curry Chair in Public Policy. The founder and editor of National Affairs, he is also a senior editor at The New Atlantis, a contributing editor at National Review, and a contributing opinion writer at the New York Times. At AEI, Levin and scholars in the Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies research division study the foundations of self-government and the future of law, regulation, and constitutionalism. They also explore the state of American social, political, and civic life, focusing on the preconditions necessary for family, community, and country to flourish. Levin served as a member of the White House domestic policy staff under President George W. Bush. He was also executive director of the President’s Council on Bioethics and a congressional staffer at the member, committee, and leadership levels. In addition to being interviewed frequently on radio and television, Levin has published essays and articles in numerous publications, including Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, The Atlantic, and Commentary. He is the author of several books on political theory and public policy, most recently American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation – and Could Again (Basic Books, 2024). He holds an MA and PhD from the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. Show Notes Get your copy of Yuval Levin’s American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation—and Could Again Yuval Levin’s background as a Jewish American and his childhood immigration to the United States from Israel. Yuval has “the kind of vision that sometimes immigrants have, which combines a really deep gratitude for this country with a sense of what's unique about it, and what's wonderfully strange about it.” Yuval’s religious practice at a Conservative Jewish synagogue in Washington, DC. How Torah has shaped Yuval Levin’s life and thought. Torah is Hebrew for “law.” Annual cycle of reading and immersing oneself in a text. “The American Constitution is not divine. It’s the work of a patchwork of compromises, it has a lot of problems, by no means do I think that it’s analogous to the Hebrew Bible.” Why write a book about the American Constitution? How to understand the constitution as a framework for social cohesion and unity. “Even in the private lives of a lot of Americans, I think the sense of isolation, of alienation, breakdown