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Democracies can die with a coup dtat, a quick seizure of power or they can die a little at a time.

It happens most gradually and deceptively with the election of an authoritarian leader, enablers who abuse governmental power, and finally, the complete repression of the opposition.

Perhaps the canary in the coal mine indicating a nation is slipping toward the death of democracy is when a minority group seizes power and keeps it by any means necessary.

James Madison in Federalist #51 worried about the tyranny of the majority, but what we have witnessed is tyranny of the minority.

The Republicans have won the popular vote for president only once in the last 20 years but have controlled the presidency for 12 years of those two decades.

The fact is that minority rule, whether Republican or Democrat, is bad for our American experiment.

Daniel Ziblatt, professor of political science at Harvard offers this: While our nations founders sought to protect small states, they didnt want to empower a smaller group at the expense of a larger one.

A recent example is the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court. He was nominated by a minority president (Trump) who lost the national popular vote by 3 million ballots, confirmed by a narrow majority of the Senate representing just 44 percent of all Americans, aligned with four other conservative justices including one nominated by the same minority president (Trump) and two others by a president (Bush 43), who also entered the White House with minority support.

According to a New York Times article, Democrats easily won more overall votes for the U.S. Senate in 2016 and 2018, and yet the Republicans hold 53 of 100 seats. The 45 Democratic and two independent senators represent many more people than the 53 Republicans.

The Senate was designed to protect small states, but the population of the four biggest states California, Texas, Florida and New York grew by a combined 8.2 million over the past decade. The combined population of the four smallest Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska and North Dakota grew by 124,000. That is a serious design flaw in representation.

The House of Representatives does represent by population, but the number of representatives was capped at 435 in 1929 when the population of the U.S was one-third the current size. Each congressperson should represent 708,000 citizens. Instead each serves anywhere from 989,000 to 526,000.

And then theres the Electoral College.

The number of electors in each state is equal to the sum of the states membership in the Senate and the House. This gives an advantage to smaller population states. Again, North Dakota has about one electoral vote per 224,000 people, while California gets about one vote per 677,000 people.

So, our winner-takes-all (except Maine and Nebraska) Electoral College model dramatically enables minority rule. No other established democracy has an electoral college.

Remedy? Instead of winner takes all, some other electoral methods that could be used: straight popular vote, proportional popular vote, proportional electoral vote, or weighted vote (1st, 2nd, 3rd) (see 270towin.com)

Tyranny by the minority goes against Republicans core principles of supporting free markets.

Dr. Ziblatt, explains: The Republican party is (like) a protected firm in a marketplace, artificially benefiting from the political system that allows it to win even when it doesnt win a majority. If we had competition of ideas, it would have to change its strategy. When Republicans cannot win a majority of votes nationally and still retain power, the free market is diminished.

If we continue down this path, this leads us from permanent tyranny of the minority to one party rule. (See Kentucky). That is not what the founders intended.

When there is no competition of ideas in local, state, and federal elections, intelligent progress becomes impossible. Research and compromise disappear, and decisions are made on ideology only.

Autocratic principles creep into the system from the likes of Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, and the Republican party.

Levitsky and Ziblatt, in How Democracies Die, lay out the principle in simple yet stark terms:

A political system that allows tyranny of the minority to control the most powerful offices is not legitimate.

Without some semblance of majority rule, there can be no democracy.

Originally posted here:
What happens to our democracy with 'tyranny of the minority'? - Murray Ledger and Times