-Source-The Federalist-
It appears that intellectual poverty is no barrier to publication in The New York Times opinion page, if the ideas being expressed put a tingle in leftists’ spines. A recent case in point is an article by Meagan Day and Bhaskar Sunkara entitled, “Think the Constitution Will Save Us? Think Again.”
Day and Sunkara argue, or rather assert without properly arguing, that the Constitution is “an outdated relic” that “serves as the foundation for a system of government that rules over people, rather than an evolving tool for popular self-government.” This is ostensibly because “the subversion of democracy was the explicit intent of the Constitution’s framers.”
They go on to note that “conservative business elites” like President Trump revere the Constitution because it empowers them to prevent government from redistributing their wealth and guaranteeing the interests of working people. Instead of our “byzantine” Constitution, they claim that our ideal should be “a strong federal government powered by a proportionally elected unicameral legislature.”
Day and Sunkara’s analysis is so shallow that it’s hard to know where to begin. Perhaps the best place to start is with the one thing they got right: subverting democracy was the explicit intent of the Constitution’s framers. But they fail to address what James Madison meant by “democracy” in Federalist 10, and why he and the other Founders wanted to subvert it.
Madison argued for a republic over a democracy, by which he meant essentially a representative democracy over a pure democracy. The reason for this is the same as the reason for all the “byzantine” aspects of the Constitution: preventing tyranny. Tyranny can take numerous forms, but it always boils down to the person or people with power ruling for their own benefit, rather than for the benefit of those whom they rule. Whether a people is ruled by one, or few, or many, virtue demands that the rulers rule for the benefit of the ruled. Read more
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