What do you mean by fetishizing the Constitution? The Constitution is the document that regulates the laws that regulate our society; it represents our first principles. If you don't like the idea of adhering to the Constitution, there's basically no way you can like any state that American politics can possibly obtain.
Well, your last sentence makes a lot of sense, so I'll just leave it at that. While I'm sure there are disagreements about first principles, I'm pretty sure he means the specific view of the constitution as immutable or sacred in the way that people echo Scalia-esque things when talking about the 2nd amendment rather than focusing on more pragmatic interpretations of existing precedents. Which I agree is a problem in the abstract; it's just a fine line to walk relative to seeming overly dismissive of the principles underlying the US constitution.
I don't think that indicates any genuine obsession with the constitution, I think that's just wrapping themselves in the flag. They wouldn't get all up ins if you played fast and loose with the 10th Amendment, as has been happening for decades (and which I don't consider particularly objectionable). At the same time, I can't bring myself to believe that the constitution should be reinterpreted however the wind blows, because there's no point to having meta-rules if they are just as easily changed as the rules they govern... let's just say that I'd like to cleave to the middle road here.
Yes, well, one man's no true Scotsman is another's representative Scotsman. You can argue what constitutes a "genuine" obsession, but in terms of the international perception the way that so many arguments in the US are framed around some suggestion that the constitution itself is sacrosanct is somewhat unusual. I don't think anyone is arguing for making them easy to change or as easily changed as other laws. But there's an element of religious faith in the way many Americans talk about the nation's founders and notable figures, and that's what he was referring to. Basically, "don't change the constitution because <evidence based argument of the cost benefit of the contested concept and why it is good historically>" is qualitatively different from "don't change the constitution because it's the constitution and let's try to think like 18th century lawyers in order to get it right", and too many arguments in the US boil down to the latter on one or (due to its inherently specious nature) both sides.
I agree that the second stance you mention is bad and that it is descriptive of a substantial number of arguments in US politics, but what I'm trying to say in my first line is that I'm less convinced that the text of the Constitution is being fought over as a sacred objective in and of itself as that it provides a convenient landmark for people who just want to say "that's not how we do things." Is it really that different from, say, French arguments about "Frenchness?" The Constitution is being used as an anchor for those things, but the very speciousness of the arguments mean they don't actually require an anchor--they are, at bottom, appeals to emotion rather than logic.
