According to a new book by Two Harvard government professors titled “Tyranny of the Minority”, the U.S. Constitution is in desperate need of amendments. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt the co-authors of the book, gave an interview to the “Harvard Gazette”. They discussed some of the ways the United States Constitution is outdated in comparison to other Democracies.
“The United States has a plethora of counter-majoritarian institutions, some of which are essential to democracy. Our independent judiciary and our Bill of Rights are two examples. But we also have a set of counter-majoritarian institutions that don’t exist in most democracies and are arguably antithetical to democracy. The most obvious one is the Electoral College, which allows those who win fewer votes to capture the presidency.” Levitsky said.
The United States is the only country in the world where the person who receives the most votes is not always the person who is elected president. The electoral college is an antiquated system that allows for small populations in a handful of battleground states to decide the winner of the presidential election for the entire country. That is as undemocratic as it gets. Levitsky also points to the U.S. Senate and its faults.
“Another is the U.S. Senate, which gives vast overrepresentation to sparsely populated states like Vermont and Wyoming and the Dakotas. It has repeatedly allowed the party that wins fewer votes to win control of the Senate. In addition, the filibuster is a super-majority rule; you need, in effect, 60 votes to pass legislation in the Senate.”
States like the Dakotas have a total of 4 Senators while Washington D.C. has 0, with practically the same population. Leading to disproportionate representation throughout the country and its territories.
They also highlight the comparisons between today’s Republican Party and semi-loyalists. Semi-loyalists like today’s Republican Party both back a leader that undermines elections and their outcomes. Along with other anti-Democratic efforts that can be seen in the present-day GOP. These efforts are foundational in a Democracy’s demise.
Levitsky adds “The real test between a loyal and a semi-loyal democrat is: What do they do when a threat to democracy emerges in their own camp? A loyal democrat is willing to cross the aisle and work with political rivals to isolate and defeat authoritarians. Semi-loyalists do not. When an authoritarian threat emerges, they will tolerate and even condone it. They will downplay violence and abuses of power or refuse to speak out against them. And they will refuse to work across the aisle in defense of democracy. That, unfortunately, is exactly what we saw after the 2020 election.”
A large majority of the population has liberal views when it comes to social issues. Yet a president and Senate who lost the majority vote were allowed to appoint 3 conservative Supreme Court Justices for a lifetime appointment. Those Justices appointed by the minority view of this generation will be the deciding voice for legal decisions for generations to come that will only become more Liberal. That is far too much power for the minority. There needs to be a concerted effort to amend these outdated rules written by kids in their teens and twenties almost 250 years ago. It’s been over fifty years since the last significant Amendment to the Constitution. Just think how much this Country and the political landscape has changed in that time.
Now that one of the two political parties that governs our system. Has chosen to make and support anti-democratic decisions based on the holes in our Constitution. It’s time we patch those Constitutional holes with new Amendments. Before the Republican Party sinks our democracy for good. Because if you thought that once Joe Biden beat Donald Trump the threat to our democracy was over. As another election cycle will soon be upon us the stakes are even higher now than in 2020. These dire choices will follow us as long as Trump and those who support his MAGA movement continue to make up a majority of the Republican Party. Until Republicans rid themselves of those complicit supporters of Trump’s authoritarian visions. We will continue to teeter on the edge of the democratic cliff.
As Daniel Ziblatt puts it. “One of the points of our book is that the latter force tends not to be a majority, but we continue to be vulnerable given our institutions. We got through the 2020 election, just barely. Even if we get through the 2024 election with our democracy intact, unless we reform our democracy, we will remain in this fragile position where every national election is a national emergency.”
For the entire interview click the “Harvard Gazette” article below
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