abstractions, simple ideologies, and large-scale theories. Minimalists tend to respect traditions, and they do not believe that long-standing practices should be altered lightly or without a careful analysis that includes many voices. Minimalists insist that their approach shows a kind of civic respect, because they seek to recognize--rather than to repudiate--the defining principles of ideologically diverse judges and citizens. In disputes over religious freedom, for example, they prefer results that can be accepted by believers and nonbelievers alike. Minimalists also defend their approach on pragmatic grounds. In their view, those who seek enduring change are not likely to succeed if they defy the deepest beliefs of large parts of the country. On occasion, minimalists are willing to think big and to endorse significant departures from the status quo--but they prefer to do so after accommodating, learning from, and bringing on board a variety of different perspectives. The Court's decisions banning sex discrimination emerged from a minimalist process, starting with small steps and culminating in larger ones that nearly all members of the Court, and much of the nation, were ultimately willing to endorse.

On the other hand, visionaries:

have a large-scale understanding of where the nation should be heading. They are entirely willing to press a controversial theory about, say, liberty or equality or the president's power as commander-in-chief, even if that theory offends many Americans. Visionaries object that minimalists are too cautious, too accommodating, too fearful. If visions call for wholesale rejection of the views of "the other side," so be it. Chief Justice John Marshall and Justice Hugo Black rank among constitutional law's great visionaries, having favored sweeping decisions about federal power (Marshall) and free speech (Black). On today's Court, Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas frequently operate as visionaries, in the sense that they are entirely willing to overrule precedents in favor of their own distinctive visions of constitutional law. They would gladly overrule Roe v. Wade, and they would readily reject decades of precedents on affirmative action and campaign finance regulation.

Sunstein is, by his own description, a minimalist. Moreover, he is a long term friend of Obama's (and husband of Samantha Power, the star foriegn policy advisor he was forced to let go after calling Hillary a monster during the primaries); he is a likely presidental appointee--perhaps even a Supreme court nominee. So it's still fair to wonder if we should be placing the accent on the "minimal" and regarding as mere rhetorical flourish suggestions of anything "visionary."

But Sunstein has elsewhere given us a pretty good clue to just how visionary--indeed, radical, a minimalist can be. In one of Sunstein's recent books, The Second Bill of Rights: FDR's Greatest Speech, endorses a radical vision of change, one he resurrects from the past. As glossed by the author himself, Sunstein revisits FDR's 1944 State of the Union message:

But the real legacy of the leader of the Greatest Generation and the nation's most extraordinary president has been utterly lost. His Second Bill of Rights is largely forgotten, although, ironically, it has helped shape countless constitutions throughout the world -- including the interim Iraqi constitution. To some extent, it has guided our own deepest aspirations. And it helps us to straighten out some national confusions that were never more prominent, and more pernicious, than they are today.

It's past time to understand it.

Roosevelt began his speech by emphasizing that war was a shared endeavor in which the United States was simply one participant. Now that the war was in the process of being won, the main objective for the future could be "captured in one word: Security." Roosevelt argued that the term "means not only physical security which provides safety from attacks by aggressors," but also "economic security, social security, moral security." He insisted that "essential to peace is a decent standard of living for all individual men and women and children in all nations. Freedom from fear is eternally linked with freedom from want."

Moving to domestic affairs, Roosevelt emphasized the need to bring security to all American citizens. He argued for a "realistic tax law -- which will tax all unreasonable profits, both individual and corporate, and reduce the ultimate cost of the war to our sons and daughters." We "cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people -- whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth -- is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure," he declared.

At that point, the speech became spectacularly ambitious. Roosevelt looked back, not entirely approvingly, to the framing of the Constitution. At its inception, the nation had protected "certain inalienable political rights -- among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures," he noted. But over time, those rights had proved inadequate, as "we have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence."

"We have accepted, so to speak, a Second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all -- regardless of station, race, or creed."

Then he listed the relevant rights:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation.

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation.

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living.

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad.

The right of every family to a decent home.

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health.

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment.

The right to a good education.

In this light, minimalism sounds more like consensus-building leadership--with real purpose.