One of the more popular grievances from the contemporary left revolves around the notion that our nation has been subverted by “minority rule.”
Here is the pollster Nate Silver:
Silver is confusing the inability to coerce others with minoritarianism. It is not a serious threat to American democracy that New Yorkers are unable to dictate Oklahoma’s abortion laws. Nor that Texans can’t compel Rhode Islanders to adopt their gun laws. It’s the point.
Elites like to mock the proles when they point out that we don’t live in a democracy. But the system Silver believes problematic tempers divisions. It is the core idea of American governance. If the United States is more divided than it ever has been in modern times, as a New York Times reporter recently claimed, we have even less reason to dispense with the mechanisms and institutions that diffuse power and constrain one side of the divide from lording over the other.
The anti-constitutionalist’s argument usually has two strands that (illogically) intersect. The first is to assert that the Constitution is a work of slave-owning white men who used antiquated and counterproductive ideas that undermine modernity and “democracy.” The second is to argue that we have absolutely no idea what the founders intended, anyway.
When conservative-turned-progressive Max Boot — the gulf between technocrat interventionist and Constitution-averse leftist isn’t as wide as you imagine — says that “American democracy is broken,” his plan to fix it is to effectively dispense with states. “The Founders,” notes Boot, “never envisioned such an imbalance between power and population. It undermines any pretense that we are still a democracy.”
Boot’s contention only makes sense if a person is ignorant of the founding bargain between states. As many people have already pointed out, the first American census in 1790 found that Virginia, then the most populous state, was home to around 20 percent of the population. Today, California, our largest state, makes up around 12 percent of the nation’s population. No one complained about the disparity of the Senate in 1790 — or, as far as I know, 1890 or 1990, for that matter — because the “imbalance” was literally codified in the founding document (which, incidentally, mentions “democracy” zero times).
thefederalist.com
Here is the pollster Nate Silver:
Silver is confusing the inability to coerce others with minoritarianism. It is not a serious threat to American democracy that New Yorkers are unable to dictate Oklahoma’s abortion laws. Nor that Texans can’t compel Rhode Islanders to adopt their gun laws. It’s the point.
Elites like to mock the proles when they point out that we don’t live in a democracy. But the system Silver believes problematic tempers divisions. It is the core idea of American governance. If the United States is more divided than it ever has been in modern times, as a New York Times reporter recently claimed, we have even less reason to dispense with the mechanisms and institutions that diffuse power and constrain one side of the divide from lording over the other.
The anti-constitutionalist’s argument usually has two strands that (illogically) intersect. The first is to assert that the Constitution is a work of slave-owning white men who used antiquated and counterproductive ideas that undermine modernity and “democracy.” The second is to argue that we have absolutely no idea what the founders intended, anyway.
When conservative-turned-progressive Max Boot — the gulf between technocrat interventionist and Constitution-averse leftist isn’t as wide as you imagine — says that “American democracy is broken,” his plan to fix it is to effectively dispense with states. “The Founders,” notes Boot, “never envisioned such an imbalance between power and population. It undermines any pretense that we are still a democracy.”
Boot’s contention only makes sense if a person is ignorant of the founding bargain between states. As many people have already pointed out, the first American census in 1790 found that Virginia, then the most populous state, was home to around 20 percent of the population. Today, California, our largest state, makes up around 12 percent of the nation’s population. No one complained about the disparity of the Senate in 1790 — or, as far as I know, 1890 or 1990, for that matter — because the “imbalance” was literally codified in the founding document (which, incidentally, mentions “democracy” zero times).
It's Not 'Minority Rule,' It's The Point
The diffusing of the federal government’s power over states and the state’s power over individuals isn’t 'minority rule.'
thefederalist.com
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