Fogdog
Well-Known Member
The people who are telling us that the US is a republic and not a democracy are not wrong and they are probably hewing closer to the original intent of the framers of the constitution than people who support US democracy as it stands today.
www.politico.com
Opinion | Republicans Are Moving Rapidly to Cement Minority Rule. Blame the Constitution.
Democracy is not just the enemy of the Republican Party. It is also the enemy of the Constitution. Americans associate the Constitution with popular liberties such as due process and freedom of speech. They overlook its architecture of state power, which erects formidable barriers to equal representation and majority rule in all three branches of government. The Republicans are not struggling to overturn a long and storied history of democratic rules and norms. They’re walking through an open door.
In unicameral legislatures, the democratic majority — described by James Madison as those who “labor under all the hardships of life and secretly sigh for a more equal distribution of its blessings” — has too much power to pursue its “leveling” designs. If the legislature is divided in two, however, with an upper chamber reflecting the interests of the wealthy minority “who are placed above the feelings of indigence,” the majority’s designs will be frustrated.
It was, after all, written by wealthy men for wealthy men. Labor have been fighting to get the bourgeoise's un-calloused hands off their throats for generations. The 15th and 19th Amendments to the constitution expanded the right to vote to Black men, and women. States made laws that effectively took the right to vote away from Black people. The Voting Rights Act wiped those laws away. But the voting rights act never became an amendment and THAT is what the "US is a Republic not a Democracy" people are going after. In 2015 SCOTUS struck section 5 from the VRA. Section 5 required the nationalization of voting standards and preemptive action by the federal government to protect those standards. Because the Constitution does not set a standard, states set their own standards. And so, here we are today, with states using extreme Gerrymandering, and laws that make it harder for lower income people to vote, laws that exclude people with past convictions from voting even though they served their sentences. States also jigger with the election system itself to skew the vote in their favor. Needless to say, most of those actions were taken by Republicans who, ever since Nixon was Prez, agreed with the Constitution that the right to vote is not a universal one.
Liberals/Democrats aren't fighting to defend the Constitution as it stands, we are fighting to change it and it is Republicans who by opposing democracy and majority rule are simply fighting for the status quo of Constitutional law. The Warren court brought a higher level of democracy and a glimmer of majority rule to the US. The current stack of right wing SCOTUS judges believe the Warren court over stepped. They will argue for a return to the founder's form of Constitutional law and sweep away rulings made by earlier courts. After all, they were chosen by minority presidents and confirmed in the Senate, which by design skews to minority interests.
The majority on the SCOTUS see majority rule as a threat. It probably is, to them.
Opinion | Republicans Are Moving Rapidly to Cement Minority Rule. Blame the Constitution.
Democracy is in trouble, but a lawless coup isn’t the real threat.
www.politico.com
Opinion | Republicans Are Moving Rapidly to Cement Minority Rule. Blame the Constitution.
Democracy is not just the enemy of the Republican Party. It is also the enemy of the Constitution. Americans associate the Constitution with popular liberties such as due process and freedom of speech. They overlook its architecture of state power, which erects formidable barriers to equal representation and majority rule in all three branches of government. The Republicans are not struggling to overturn a long and storied history of democratic rules and norms. They’re walking through an open door.
In unicameral legislatures, the democratic majority — described by James Madison as those who “labor under all the hardships of life and secretly sigh for a more equal distribution of its blessings” — has too much power to pursue its “leveling” designs. If the legislature is divided in two, however, with an upper chamber reflecting the interests of the wealthy minority “who are placed above the feelings of indigence,” the majority’s designs will be frustrated.
It was, after all, written by wealthy men for wealthy men. Labor have been fighting to get the bourgeoise's un-calloused hands off their throats for generations. The 15th and 19th Amendments to the constitution expanded the right to vote to Black men, and women. States made laws that effectively took the right to vote away from Black people. The Voting Rights Act wiped those laws away. But the voting rights act never became an amendment and THAT is what the "US is a Republic not a Democracy" people are going after. In 2015 SCOTUS struck section 5 from the VRA. Section 5 required the nationalization of voting standards and preemptive action by the federal government to protect those standards. Because the Constitution does not set a standard, states set their own standards. And so, here we are today, with states using extreme Gerrymandering, and laws that make it harder for lower income people to vote, laws that exclude people with past convictions from voting even though they served their sentences. States also jigger with the election system itself to skew the vote in their favor. Needless to say, most of those actions were taken by Republicans who, ever since Nixon was Prez, agreed with the Constitution that the right to vote is not a universal one.
Liberals/Democrats aren't fighting to defend the Constitution as it stands, we are fighting to change it and it is Republicans who by opposing democracy and majority rule are simply fighting for the status quo of Constitutional law. The Warren court brought a higher level of democracy and a glimmer of majority rule to the US. The current stack of right wing SCOTUS judges believe the Warren court over stepped. They will argue for a return to the founder's form of Constitutional law and sweep away rulings made by earlier courts. After all, they were chosen by minority presidents and confirmed in the Senate, which by design skews to minority interests.
The majority on the SCOTUS see majority rule as a threat. It probably is, to them.
