Seth MacFarlane Instagram – This is one of the most enlightening books you’ll read this election year.
Our Constitution is a work of art, but of course it has flaws. No other presidential democracy permits the loser of the popular vote to win the presidency.
No other democracy retained any version of an Electoral College past the twentieth century.
No other democracy has a filibuster, which allows legislative minorities to routinely and permanently thwart legislative majorities.
How does this kind of imbalance play out in the real world?
Well, 61 percent of Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. 37 percent believe it should be illegal in all or most cases. And yet Roe v. Wade was abolished by unelected Supreme Court justices appointed by a president who lost the popular vote.
65 percent of Americans support stricter gun laws, while 29 percent oppose them. But the Senate vastly overrepresents gun owners, so nothing gets done.
Or, in a hypothetical put forth by authors Levitsky and Ziblatt:
“Imagine an American born in 1980 who first voted in 1998 or 2000. The Democrats would have won the popular vote in every six-year cycle in the U.S. Senate and all but one presidential election during her adult lifetime. And yet she would have lived most of her adult life under Republican presidents, a Republican-controlled Senate, and a Supreme Court dominated by Republican appointees. How much faith should she have in our democracy?”
Frustration with minority rule is real.
But democracy must be preserved, and so must our Constitution. We just need to do what our predecessors in the 19th and 20th centuries did a little more often: to update, reform, and improve our institutions so that counter-majoritarian policies do not make it so insanely difficult to carry out the will of the people. As early 20th century reformer Jane Addams suggested: “The cure for the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.”
This book is a sort of how-to manual for the building of a stronger democracy that works more fairly for the majority, and it’s definitely worth your time. | Posted on 07/Mar/2024 22:04:29
