GOP Senator Says Democracy, Majority Rule Aren't What Our Country Stands For

[Galraedia]

One of the edifying side effects of the Trump era has been that, by making democracy the explicit subject of political debate, it has revealed the stark fact many influential conservatives do not believe in it. Mike Lee blurted out last fall that he opposes “rank democracy.” His fellow Republican senator, Rand Paul, tells the New York Times today, “The idea of democracy and majority rule really is what goes against our history and what the country stands for. The Jim Crow laws came out of democracy. That’s what you get when a majority ignores the rights of others.”

Paul is a bit of a crank, but here he is gesturing at a recognizable set of ideas that have long been articulated by conservative intellectuals. Importantly, these ideas are not identified solely with the most extreme or Trumpy conservatives. Indeed, they have frequently been articulated by conservatives who express deep personal animosity toward Donald Trump and his cultists.

The belief system Paul is endorsing contains a few related claims. First, the Founders explicitly and properly rejected majoritarianism. (Their favorite shorthand is “We’re a republic, not a democracy.”) Second, to the extent the current system has shortcomings, they reveal the ignorance of the majority and hence underscore the necessity of limiting democracy. Third, slavery and Jim Crow are the best historical examples of democracy run amok.

National Review has consistently advocated this worldview since its founding years, when it used these ideas to oppose civil-rights laws, and has persisted in using these ideas to argue for restrictions on the franchise. “Was ‘democracy’ good when it empowered slave owners and Jim Crow racists?,” asked NR’s David Harsanyi. Majority rule “sounds like a wonderful thing … if you haven’t met the average American voter,” argued NR’s Kevin Williamson, rebutting the horrifying ideal of majority rule with the knock-down argument: “If we’d had a fair and open national plebiscite about slavery on December 6, 1865, slavery would have won in a landslide.”

Read more: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/republican-senator-rand-paul-democracy-republic-majority-rule-jim-crow.html

[brush]

1. Hogwash. Slavery wouldn't have won if the enslaved were allowed to vote.

Paul and the other anti-democracy libetarian-leaning republicans are all full of shit. They just want white men to be able to vote/rule.

[PSPS]

4. Precisely.

Buckley et al. always started with the assumption that only those already in power/control should have any say about ... anything.

[True Blue American]

2. What is up with Mitch?

He was threatening not to allow Biden a Supreme vote in 2024? Doesn’t the old fool understand he is no longer in charge? Is he showing signs of losing it, too?

[PSPS]

3. He prefaced that with the assumption the GOP would take back the Senate majority.

[True Blue American]

7. But it was like

He was warning people just how deranged he really is.

[madamesilverspurs]

5. Regarding Rand Paul,

it could be, as was first suggested years ago, that the decomposing roadkill on top of his head is leaching dangerous toxins into his brain.


.

[Mysterian]

6. Ahhhhh yes....the ideal for America.....

to be ruled by our betters like Rand Fucking Paul.

LMFAO.