Living with an 18th Century relic

Why We are So Unequal

I left the below comment.

"The right has always been unnaturally strong in this country."

It was supposed to be strong; there is nothing unnatural about it.

6 year terms in an anti-majoritarian senate selected by state legislatures and whose members never face the electorate all at one time.

Life tenure for Supremes appointed by the president and confirmed by the senate.

Presidential electors selected by the states in whatever manner pleases them; electors free to vote for anyone; congress free to certify their vote or not.

Marbury vs. Madison.

Extra seats in the house for slave states.

Sure, it was the most democratic constitution in the world when adopted since it rejected monarchy, hereditary office, lords spiritual, and even hereditary prestige.

But it went as far as humanly possible within the framework of 18th Century republicanism to exclude the people from power and permanently cement government of the powerful, by the powerful, and for the powerful.

In contrast, the parliamentary regimes that resulted "by accident" as European monarchies and aristocracies were shorn of power within structures of state inherited from feudalism are generally much more democratic than what we Americans endure.

And to this day many Democratic pundits with reputations for solid liberalism would oppose most of the democratizing reforms now and again suggested by political scientists and constitutional scholars of progressive bent.

You, for example.

For readers who don’t realize, Booman has repeatedly urged repeal of the 17^th Amendment and written against majoritarianism in the senate.

Just as libertarians and paleocons whose ideology empowers plutocracy whine endlessly about the self-enriching uses plutes make of their power, Booman revolts against the inequality that he knows is a result of our most undemocratic constitution even as he rejects democratic reforms.

The ability of the Republican Party to ensure it will continue to control the house though their candidates consistently get fewer total votes than the Democrats is just another example of counter-democracy at work empowering the powerful and disempowering the people.

And yet, most pundits of both parties would resist and have written to oppose democratic reforms of our constitution that would move us toward the level of democracy enjoyed in European, parliamentary regimes, despite their apparently deathless concern for the advancement of democracy in foreign lands not yet liberated by our conquering armies.

Just once I would like to hear a so-called liberal Democratic leader, even a president, react to conservative idolization of the Framers and their constitution with the public scorn and ridicule it deserves.

What the Framers gave us, after all, was so wonderful that they had to fix it, right away, with ten amendments they resisted as wholly unnecessary but without which we would not have freedom of speech and religion, the right to representation by an attorney at a public jury trial, and many others of the basic liberties for which the Framers get but do not deserve the credit.

And then after that we had to fix their constitution several times more, using those same incredibly inapt and clumsy tools they provided in Article V, with an amendment (after a war!) abolishing slavery, another providing women with the vote, yet another guaranteeing the vote to anyone at least 18, another providing for popular election of senators, and another allowing disproportionate taxation of the rich.

And the truth is we are far from done having to fix it.

It is still too much like what it originally was, an 18^th Century junk-pile clapped together to guarantee the power of rich white males and nobody else, and most of them slavocrats.

The one besetting sin of the constitution from the first day was being deliberately constructed to prevent democracy and deny power to the people.

The one and only cure is and has always been democracy and then more democracy, again and again added by a succession of reforms put in through an amendment process that itself needs to be drastically reformed.

And we have a long way further to go.

On the other hand, who, seeing how terrified of democracy are even the most radical pundits of the “party of the people,” can be optimistic about the prospects for democracy in America, today?