The Crisis of Constituencies
21st September 2020
ZMan sorts it out.
One of the defining features of post-Cold War America is that public policy no longer reflects public sentiment. Washington passes plenty of laws every year and spends plenty of money on various programs. State governments have also grown like a weed in their size and scope. Plenty is done in the name of the people, but precious little is favored by the majority of the people. Instead, public policy debates are about breaking down majority opposition in service to minority interests.
In theory, democracies should operate on the principle of majority rule. Fifty percent plus one carries the day on every issue. This is certainly true in the small scale, where a simple show of hands is enough to decide an issue. That does not scale up very well, so countries have representative bodies like parliaments and legislatures. Still, in a representative democracy, with some exceptions, the majority will should be reflected in public policy debates in the parliament or legislature.
September 21st, 2020 at 12:04
It is difficult to stop the wrong 51% from outlawing the other 49%, set in place any policy they like.
September 21st, 2020 at 15:41
A basic problem with ‘democracy’, as Jonah Goldberg once remarked, is that 51% of the population gets to pee in the soup of the other 49%. Such tyranny is what the Constitution was created to prevent. This is why proglodytes hate the Constitution and want to get rid of it, in whole or in part, and work like beavers to get around it whenever they can.