Both authoritarian MAGA elites and most pro-democracy, pro-rule of law conservatives (elite or not) say something about like this about the US Constitution:
The constitution means what it says.
The Constitution contains a number of intentional strategic ambiguities that were needed to get the thing drafted, agreed on and then ratified. That is historical fact, not opinion. Because of those ambiguities and some other human factors such as greed, ideological zealotry, innate cognitive biology, self-identity, etc., there is no authoritative way to know or determine what the constitution says. That is biological/social fact, not opinion.
Ben Franklin saw the issue clearly.
“I confess that I do not entirely approve this Constitution at present, but Sir, I am not sure I shall never approve it. . . . In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution, with all its Faults, if they are such; because I think a General Government is necessary for us. . . . . I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain, may be able to make a better Constitution. . . . . It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this System approaching so near to Perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our Enemies, who are waiting with confidence to hear how our Councils are Confounded, like those of the Builders of Babel, and that our States are on the Point of Separation, only to meet, hereafter, for the purposes of cutting one another's throats. Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and I am not sure that it is not the best. . . . . On the whole, Sir, I cannot help expressing a Wish, that every Member of the Convention, who may still have Objections to it, would with me on this Occasion doubt a little of his own Infallibility, and to make manifest our Unanimity, put his Name to this instrument.” -- Ben F., 1787
Sir, I agree to this Constitution, with all its Faults, if they are such.
In significant part, (1) the disagreements the drafters of the Constitution including its Amendments struggled with were not resolved, and (2) we are today deeply, bitterly divided over modern variants of many of those same disagreements. It is impossible for humans to agree on what the words of the constitution meant. Literally impossible. It cannot be done.
The drafters used "strategic ambiguity" as a means to get the constitution drafted, agreed upon and then ratified. Strategic ambiguity was needed to deal with intractable special interest demands and faction or ideological demands. Regarding contested concepts, when people disagree about whether "liberty" protects economic freedom or reproductive autonomy, they're not merely confused or biased. They're operating from different normative mental frameworks about what human flourishing requires or about what is best for themselves and/or others.
That is value pluralism, i.e., recognition that fundamental values can genuinely conflict without rational resolution. It's not relativism (all views equally valid) or nihilism (no views defensible), but rather the acknowledgment that moral disagreement can be rationally irresolvable because people start from different, internally coherent moral and social values.
Constitutional meaning is contested not just because people are biased, confused or ignorant, but because the constitutional text employs normatively loaded concepts about which reasonable people fundamentally disagree.That is mostly why it is impossible for people to agree about what some significant parts of the Constitution say.[1] The Constitution is necessarily ambiguous and therefore cannot be authoritatively interpreted. Political factions interpret what it means through the lens of humans being human and ideology being what it is.
What is ideology? A reflection of the mind. Ideology can grip and hold a mind real hard and tight. For example, most hard core Christian nationalist theocrats know that God himself ordained the US to be the lead nation on Earth and to dominate. That is their ideology. For most, their ideology is a big part of their identity. If you criticize or attack their ideology, it is personal. You criticize or attack them personally. Most people really don't like that and won't accept it.
Constitutional ambiguity is a major part of why all hell has broke loose in American politics. Listen to what corrupt, authoritarian MAGA elites tell us and force on us is legal or illegal. Abortion, illegal. Corruption, legal. Lies, better than truth when convenient. Etc.
Footnote:
1. An example. The Second Amendment: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Those twenty-seven words have generated one of America's most bitter constitutional divisions. The critical question is whether the prefatory militia clause either (i) limits, or (ii) just explains the operative clause. Profoundly different constitutional visions hang on that 4 word clause.
Conservatives usually read the militia clause as merely an introduction, which is logically disconnected from the definition of the substantive right.
Liberals argue the militia clause crucially informs the meaning of the operative clause. That tethers gun rights directly to militia participation, what we now call the National Guard. Under this interpretation, the founders intended to ensure that state militias could resist federal tyranny, not to guarantee individual gun ownership divorced from organized militia service.
Which side is right here? That probably depends for most people mostly on their left vs right political ideology.
Is there another way to see it or do the analysis? Hell yes. Ditch left and right ideology. Look at the public interest and public opinion.
