We are citizens of a republic, not members of a commune.
We are citizens of a republic, not members of a commune.
T hose devious Republicans, unable to “win elections,” have been relying on obscure procedural loopholes such as the “Electoral College,” the United States Senate, and the Supreme Court to unfurl their authoritarian plot. This is the conceit of a popular new genre of political commentary that contends things such as that “America is under minority rule,” as one Washington Post correspondent recently put it.
Constitutional governance, you see, is all well and good until it fails to meet the arbitrary criteria of “democracy” that have been set by bunch of j-school graduates and politicians who are either ignorant of basic American civics or contemptuous of them. To save time, let’s just call these people “Jacobins.”
I’m unsure what Jacobins expect republicans, or even Republicans, to do. Should the GOP surrender the presidency every time it fails to win the “popular vote?” Should it ignore the existence of states altogether? Should senators in Idaho need to get the go-ahead from senators in New York before voting to confirm Supreme Court justices?
Now, I happen to believe so-called “minority rule” is one of the most indispensable aspects of American governance. Obstructing a majority of Californians from lording over the daily decisions of people in Wyoming isn’t some kink in the system, it’s the point. The only people who would refer to federalism as “minority rule” are people who believe that Americans need to be “ruled” over in the first place.
There is no other way to keep a sprawling, geographically, ethnically, culturally, religiously diverse nation free and self-governing. That’s why there is a bigger imperative to safeguard the minority from the majority. For one thing, that equation is constantly changing. For another, we are citizens of a republic, not members of a commune.
In reality, of course, the minority is not “ruling” anyone. New York and California are free to pass all the harebrained legislation they please, as long they adhere to basic constitutional guidelines that protect individual liberty. On the other hand, there is nary a progressive policy scheme in existence that doesn’t entail compelling the entire nation to accept their rules and mores. Brooklynites want to impose their views and policies Oklahomans. Oklahomans don’t really care about Brooklynites.
Now that progressives believe they have an enduring left-wing majority in their grasp, they’ve become big fans of crass, centralized democratic power. Now that it looks like the Supreme Court is going to become a stickler for the Constitution-as-written, New York Times columnists are suddenly concerned that the judicial branch is imbued with too much power. When the Supreme Court was fabricating abortion or gay-marriage rights out of the ether without the consent of the people, it was an institution to celebrated. Funny how that works.
Of course, the Court was an intentionally undemocratic institution, buttressed by lifetime appointments that are supposed to shield justices from the vagaries of politics and fleeting whims of the majority. Every story that celebrates the amazing “changes” brought about by Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s career are only conceding she was terrible at her job. The court is meant to preserve and uphold law, not invent it.
For those of you too young to remember, there was no hand-wringing over America being “ruled” by the minority when Bill Clinton, who never gained a majority of American electorate, was nominating Ginsburg for the court. When Obama won the White House, the only democratic institution that mattered in America was the presidency. When a Congress was elected to oppose his agenda — by a majority of voters — it was not hailed as the will of the people but as “obstructionist.” When Trump became president, and Republicans also held the White House and both houses of Congress, the democratic will was expressed by the imaginary popular vote. When Democrats won the House back, the true will of the people once again reverted to the House.
Now, the Jacobin position, forwarded by MSNBC’s Chris Hayes and many others, is that losing the “popular vote” would set off a “legitimacy crisis.” This isn’t based in even the thinnest reed of American constitutional tradition. It’s another concocted norm.
The direct national elections that progressives are pining for these days might not work out for Democrats exactly as they imagine. Whatever the case, claiming, as reporters incessantly do, that Hillary Clinton won the “popular vote” by “six million votes” is tantamount to declaring your team World Series champs because they led the league in attendance. We have zero clue what a popular vote looks like because no one has ever run for it.
Maybe Jacobins will gain more traction in a country that’s abandoned civic education. Maybe one day they will rid us of the Electoral College, the Senate, the filibuster, and the nine-judge Supreme Court. The mob’s inclination, as Madison once wrote, is propelled by “common impulse of passion” that is “adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.”
It is Jacobins, not institutionalists, who want power that lies outside of the constraints of American governance. It is they who are scared that winning elections isn’t enough.
I’ve been hearing how Republicans “can’t win” elections my entire life. Guess what? One day Barack Obama is being coronated a unifying generational leader and next there’s a Tea Party. So we’ll see. The American people are fickle, their views malleable. Which is why our founding ideals of governance shouldn’t be.