Thread by @gelliottmorris

We talk a lot in American political discourse about “tyranny of the majority,” but the real problem is the opposite: letting <40% of the population overrule the other >60% will probably not work out in the long run. (GOP Senators represent 44% of Americans but have 50 seats.)

https://twitter.com/AriBerman/status/1360704888704016387

Obviously, ther3 should be reasonable safeguards for the political minority. But more often than not the “tyrannical minority” has been made into a boogeyman for people seeking to impose minoritarian will over the rest of the people. Sadly, it has usually worked (for a while).

One thing people forget a lot is that America’s political and electoral institutions were built long before the idea of true majoritarian popular sovereignty was accepted by most people. That’s true even when the founders were restricting rights to white landowning men.

Let me put this another way: If your theory for how the government should work was “people should almost always get what they want,” you probably wouldn’t make the Senate or Electoral College — either as we have them today, or in their original design in 1787.

The second tweet was supposed to say “tyrannical majority.” I’m not going to redo the whole thread though //end