Tuesday, November 8, 2022

Minority Rule


James McHenry, a Maryland delegate to the Constitutional Convention wrote: 

“A lady asked Dr. (Benjamin) Franklin, Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy. A republic, replied the Doctor, if you can keep it.”  

Ideally a republic is based on one of our Declaration of Independence’s most important phrases, “consent of the governed”.

That’s not exactly what was protected in the Constitution by the founders. Minority rule, and voter rights, were for the privileged white land owners.

And minority rule is the antithesis of a republic.

It's happened before and will happen again.

Republicans can win the gerrymandered House and anti-democratic Senate with fewer overall votes than Democrats. Along with the Electoral College, these tragic errors in judgment by the founders will impair, undermine and corrupt our representative republic.

Like slavery, the founders codified these inequalities in the Constitution. (Thanks to the slave states.)

White nationalist Republicans will refuse to concede if they lose. They will howl “voter fraud” and “rigged”, as they stir more resentment, anger and hate. (The real values of the radical Right.) 

After 2000 and 2016, Republicans have become accustomed to having presidential power with a minority of votes. 

Americans STILL endure taxation and minority rule without fair representation. 

Washington DC has more people than Vermont and Wyoming combined, yet have no voice in our so-called republic. 

White nationalist Christians are not the majority, but they are louder and are more empowered than the majority.

And that's what they want. Minority rule. And they will violently revolt against the majority AGAIN, if they lose.

This is how a republic dies.


11 comments:

Anonymous said...

So you are an anti-constitutionalist. That's nice to know as you scream Republicans are trying to kill democracy.

Dave Dubya said...

Anonymous,

So you are obviously an ill-informed uneducated person.

What the hell is an "anti-constitutionalist" in your fantasy world, anyway? Someone who wants to amend it?

The founders wanted it to be amended, as I do now. So that would make them "anti-constitutionalist" to you.

Slavery was constitutional. I suppose you think the 13th Amendment was also "anti-constitutionalist".

Have you completely abandoned reason, as well as the definitions of words?

Anonymous said...

Minority rule? Democrats have the House, the Senate, and the White House.

Dave Dubya said...

Democrats have the House, the Senate, and the White House by a MAJORITY VOTE!

McConnell, Sinema and Manchin have a veto over the majority with the filibuster.

Millions more Americans will have voted for a Democratic Senator, but Republicans will control it by winning with fewer votes or by filibuster.

Minority rule.

Anonymous said...

Whose problem is it that Dems can't control their people?

Dave Dubya said...


"Whose problem is it that Dems can't control their people?"

The answer can be found in his question.

The authoritarianism in people like Anonymous IS the problem, thinking people need to be controlled by political parties. In a democratic republic the parties are supposed to be accountable to the people.

Obviously he feels the opposite way.

Dave Dubya said...

The Biden Administration is launching a federal investigation into a Missouri hospital that denied an abortion to a woman even though multiple doctors determined that her life was in danger because the pregnancy was nonviable & could lead to a deadly infection.

Pro-fetus is NOT pro-life. This is the anti-woman cruelty the radical Right theocrats embrace.

More democracy means more freedom.

Michigan, Kentucky, Montana, California, Vermont, and Kansas can thank the pro-fetus Supreme Court for the need to draft ballot initiatives that protect freedom of choice.

And a BLUE WAVE in Michigan! No Trump cronies pushing his Big Lie won a state-wide office.

This is why the radical Right HATES democracy and loves minority rule.

In August Kansas women and the men who support them voted to protect their reproductive freedom.

“This fall, Roe is on the ballot,” President Joe Biden declared in a defiant speech from the White House just hours after the Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this year.

Voters in Montana rejected proposed legislation that would have imposed criminal penalties on health care providers who do not act to preserve the life of infants born during the course of an abortion,

Kentucky voters rejected a proposal to amend the state’s constitution to say that it does not “secure or protect a right” to abortion or the funding of abortion. The ballot question voters faced read: “Are you in favor of amending the Constitution of Kentucky by creating a new Section of the Constitution to be numbered Section 26A to state as follows: To protect human life, nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to secure or protect a right to abortion or require the funding of abortion?”

Michigan voters on Tuesday voted to enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution, a move that will help block a decades-old abortion ban from taking effect, CNN projects.
The passage of ballot Proposal 3 amends the Michigan constitution to establish an “individual right to reproductive freedom, including right to make and carry out all decisions about pregnancy.”

The California Constitution will protect the right to an abortion after residents on Tuesday passed a ballot initiative to enshrine the right in the state’s governing document.

The Vermont Constitution will now be amended to read: “That an individual’s right to personal reproductive autonomy is central to the liberty and dignity to determine one’s own life course and shall not be denied or infringed unless justified by a compelling State interest achieved by the least restrictive means.”

Anonymous said...

The answer is why Democrats can't get anything done even though they have majority

Dave Dubya said...


"Whose problem is it that Dems can't control their people?"

OK. You mean their fellow party members in office, not their voters.

"Democrats can't get anything done even though they have majority."

Seems like it.

If you don't count protecting access to healthcare, funding infrastructure, lower insulin prices, etc.

They don't operate like Republicans, who generally enforce conformity.

Unlike the more authoritarian Republican Party, Democrats are less willing to fall into lockstep unity. They also have more diverse members, some on the left, some moderates, and others shackled to corporate interests.

ALL Republicans are shackled to corporate interests, so "control" isn't as difficult.

That's why Democrats can't control their party members like Republicans.

Whose problem is it? Obviously theirs, primarily.

Secondary are the people who are getting the shaft by Republican gerrymandering, women denied reproductive freedom, kids losing school lunches, teachers, union workers, minimum pay workers, those without healthcare, etc.

All because of the business as usual of economic power pulling strings in our government.

Now we endure both religion and Big Money infecting our public policy and law.

NOT what the founders had in mind.



Anonymous said...

Now that Republicans WILL have majority at least you have standing for your gripes.

Dave Dubya said...

Kari Lake with Trump at Mar-a-Lago: “You cannot stop the Founding Fathers and the blood we have inside of us, and so I will fight what happened on Tuesday. Our elections are a circus run by clowns.”

Told you so.

Trumpism is the greatest domestic threat to our Constitutional republic.