New book "Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point"

Do you have a better system?

 

The dangers of unfettered democracy had been recognized for thousands of years and certainly did not escape the notice of the founders. As Madison noted, “From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual.”

The question is what system would be better. A monarchy just makes the problem worse ensuring that all government passions will be common from the start, as there is only a single individual in charge. I think Madison’s answer is the best we’ve formulated to this point: “Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other.”

His point isn’t that we will be less likely to elect a tyrant president if we give Florida residents 20x the voter power over those of Texas, but that no president can become a tyrant as long as the president’s power is constrained by a proper set of checks and balances.

 

The author of the book vehemently disagrees with the notion that monarchy would be worse. And think about it. Prior to 1776, when early Americans were subjects of King George, they were the welfare queens of the British Empire. So they wrested themselves, from British rule, so that they twenty times the taxes to Washington, D.C.

 

The states place their ECs as their population votes...

So if CA majority votes Democrats, all of their ECs go to the Democratc president.

Only 2 states split their EC, Nebraska, and Maine.

I am in favor of a system that does not almost completely drown out the voices of those in states like Wyoming or the Dakotas.

 

hence, the thread title.

 

If we’re going to do away with the EC, go expressly popular vote, my preference would be to do away with the POTUS and federal government. Let the states go their own way.

 

Groupthink is a very dangerous thing.

 

I think the question is what makes a monarchy superior? And I guess I don’t know if we talking about just changing the way in which the leader is appointed or also increasing his powers?

If we aren’t electing the monarch, how do we determine who it should be? If we are increasing the monarch’s powers, why should we expect that to lead to better outcomes? Imagine removing the constitutional restraints on president Biden, so that he may legislate as he chooses. Is that something that any of us would find desirable?

 

For starters, who’d be easier to overthrow, one tyrant or millions of tyrants ?

But built-in restraints are easy to implement.

I just thing that Americans are intoxicated on the mutually exclusive beliefs of “freedom and equality” and can scarcely imagine a freer arrangement that slinking behind curtains and pulling a lever.

 

If this is about ease of overthrow, it still would seem we are effectively back to installing checks and balances. And for this Madison gave us the better means, as his system provides prior restraint, where overthrow is simply not desirable, as the individual leader is not vested with enough power to bother overthrowing them (or at least should be in principle).

I agree with you that majority rule is overly fetishized. However, I would also say that in our system, the level pulling is not the critical part. Instead our liberty is safeguarded because the person who is installed after the level pulling is not permitted to unilaterally invade the rights of citizens.

 

Correct, we so deep in “democracy” that a million tyrants invade your rights.

 

I guess I’m not seeing this connection. If millions prefer Biden to Trump or vice versa for president, how are my rights invaded, except through the latitude granted to that office?

 

Yes. A President is voted on by popular vote. That means that a person in Wyoming and a person in NYC have the same power as a person in Pittsburgh. Now, neither have nearly as much power as the person in Pittsburgh. You have a Senate that is allocated based on states. You also have state governments. Finally, you still have exceptionally small states receiving an outsized influence in the House. That is more than enough to protect the minority while not completely ignoring the importance of being in the majority.

As it stands now, the EC just serves to weight the vote towards Wyoming, but it doesn't make Wyoming powerful, because Wyoming is not contested. There are only about 11 powerful states in the country. They are also generally not smaller or even particularly rural states. We don't need a system to make sure everybody only cares about Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Georgia, Florida, Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, Minnesota, and Ohio.

 

I stand by no president as the best solution.

 

Straight up vote count.

My point was the electoral college does not accomplish what you think it does. It is mostly just an arbitrary system that favors swing states.

 

If we continued to elect congressmen and senators the way we do now, just switched to popular vote for president, we'd still be a republic, correct?

 

One of the limitations of our system is that I can’t vote your representative out. If we just left it to the states that wouldn’t be a problem.

 

Sorry but the states have right that are in the Constitution and that's why we have the system of voting that we have. We are a Constitutional Republic... not a mob-rules democracy.

 

Actually, they had a vote and lost.

 

Those days are long gone. I don’t know that we’re ruled by a mob. Maybe more like a blob.