The Enduring Significance of Peggy Sue Got Married (and Constitutionalism and its Discontents)

For the Balkinization symposium on Mark Tushnet and Bojan Bugaric, Constitutionalism and Its Discontents (University of Chicago Press, 2026). The movies “Back to the Future” and “Peggy Sue Got Married” offer different perspectives on the possibility that human beings through reflection and choice can fundamentally alter their condition. In “Back to the Future,” the protagonist enables his father to change his fortunes in the present by changing his father’s actions in the past. In “Peggy Sue Got Married,” a different time traveler changes her actions in the past, but the result is merely a different path to a similar present. Michael J. Fox’s fate is determined by his actions, while deeper structures are responsible for the fate of Kathleen Turner. Mark Tushnet and Bojan Bugaric in their acclaimed Constitutionalism and its Discontents take no clear position on the debate between “Back to the Future” and “Peggy Sue Got Married.” They have other, more important fish to fry. Tushnet and…