The article discusses the challenges faced by American democracy, focusing on how organized minority factions can hijack policies with broad support. Traditional understandings of democratic decline do not fully explain this phenomenon. Political scientist Steve Teles argues that mechanisms designed to prevent majority tyranny have instead enabled the dominance of minority interests. Teles advocates for rethinking liberal governance and addressing the problem of minoritarianism through transparent and straightforward democratic processes, rather than indirect tactics that weaken legitimacy.
"Faced with the fact that actually lots of people don't want things that liberals want, the way that liberals have responded is finding sneaky, complicated, roundabout ways to get around that fact."
"Tools developed to push against a potential 'tyranny of the majority' have allowed majorities to be subjugated to the will of minority interests time and again."
Collection
[
|
...
]