Once again, voices have been raised, clamouring for gun control in the United States. And once again, E. J. Dionne, Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann write that those voices will be ignored, because the United States "is now a non-majoritarian democracy:"
If that sounds like a contradiction in terms, that’s because it is. Claims that our republic is democratic are undermined by a system that vastly overrepresents the interests of rural areas and small states. This leaves the large share of Americans in metropolitan areas with limited influence over national policy. Nowhere is the imbalance more dramatic or destructive than on the issue of gun control.
And the non majoritarian character of American democracy also explains why Donald Trump is president. His supporters live in "flyover country." And they complain that nobody listens to them. But, actually, they are in control:
David Birdsell, a Baruch College political scientist, has calculated that by 2040, 70 percent of Americans will live in 15 states — and be represented by only 30 of the 100 senators.
In the House, mischievously drawn district lines vastly distort the preferences of those who cast ballots. After the 2010 Census, the GOP controlled the redrawing of congressional boundaries in most key states. The result? The Brennan Center for Justice concluded that Republicans derived a net benefit of at least 16 seats from biased boundaries, about two-thirds of their current House margin.
The electoral college, meanwhile, is increasingly out of line with the popular vote. In raw terms, Trump had the largest popular-vote deficit of any electoral college winner. It was the second time in just five elections that the two were at odds. Here again, the failure of our institutions to account for the movement to metropolitan areas is the culprit. In 1960, 63 percent of Americans lived in metros; by 2010, 84 percent did.
Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by three million votes. Trump claims that they were all illegal votes. But Rex Tillerson and a majority of Americans know that Donald Trump is a moron.
Image: davidbrin.blogspot.com
