Making our Representative Government more Democratic is not Mob Rule
Direct democracy, rule by simple majority, is dangerous and unworkable. Maximizing the democratic aspects of representative politics places the people close to power while protecting minority rights.
In response to the article, Demand to Become More Universally Democratic Now!, a commenter accused me of arguing for mob rule. They claimed, incorrectly, that the governance policies I am advocating for are a form of direct democracy. Any argument for reducing the power of a select few in order to bring that power to all citizens is immediately attacked by those few protecting their power.
While I am in no form suggesting the United States become a direct democracy, I am absolutely advocating for the maximum version of Universal Liberalism and representation we were promised. Arguing over who gets to vote is a convenient distraction from governing ourselves. The argument over who votes is on its own quite destructive to real people’s lives.
We will give the commenter the benefit of the doubt and imagine they are arguing that maximizing the one person one vote principle of democratic representation would lead to mob rule.
With that good faith, I counter, what is wrong with an affirmative and automatic right to vote for every citizen? I cannot think of an argument against the proposition that would lead to less liberty. Instead of arguing over who, how and when to vote, an affirmative and automatic right to vote enables the citizenry to focus on the policies that effect our lives and happiness. Seems like more liberty and freedom to me.
How does gerrymandering makes us a more free people with maximum liberty to govern ourselves? I have thought long and hard on that question and cannot figure out the public benefit to you and me of the gerrymander. The gerrymander allows the politicians to pick their pool of voters, instead of the voters picking their politicians. Bar the gerrymander, as it was outlawed until 1929, and the people get the keys back to the People’s House, a win for representation, liberty and freedom.
For nearly 120 years Congress grew every decade as the population grew. What did stopping the expansion of Congress in 1929 do to help the people be better represented? Nothing, it did nothing except to make the 435 representatives more powerful and less representative each year since.
In 1929, the population of the US was 122 million residents, exactly 1/3 the population of today. Tripling the size of the House returns the residents to representation ratio back to 257,000 to 1, the same as in 1929. Arguably, the original intent of the system, even when only propertied men of European descent could vote, was for the district representative to have a pretty close relation to everyone in their district. We must return to that close proximity to maintain our liberty and freedom.
The Electoral College is a tool of minoritarianism. We can do better, exactly like when we switched to the direct election of Senators. Choosing the President and Vice President by direct vote is by no means direct democracy. It is absolutely the most democratic manner of electing our representative executive.
The Senate continues to follow its original purpose as another tool of minoritarianism, especially with the current filibuster rule. Any filibuster is extra-constitutional. The Senate simply decided in its own rules to include the filibuster in order to make change nearly impossible, the ultimate tool of the minority. At the very least, the current 60-vote threshold for a piece of legislation to be considered in the Senate must go.
The original talking filibuster, to slow down legislation, is a legitimate tool of deliberation. The difference of one Senator slowing down legislation versus a minority of 41 Senators stopping legislation altogether is the difference between minority rule and a healthy democratic representation that works deliberatively for a majority of the people.
The radical idea of reducing the Senate’s minoritarianism even further by making the upper chamber a vetoer of lower chamber legislation instead of a partner would, when combined with the direct election of the President and Vice President, create the most democratic version of our three branched, bi-cameral governing experiment.
This is our government. Maximizing participation is not direct democracy, nor is it mob rule. Making voting an affirmed right and automatic process along with making our representative bodies closer to the people by expanding the size of the House, ending the Senate filibuster and directly electing the President and Vice President would take the ideals our Founders left us with (but they themselves did not universally believe in) and finally turn them into realities to universally maximize our individual and collective liberties and freedoms.
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