The US Experiences the Worst of Both Minority and Majority Rule

From my cursory study of various forms of government, as well as from my own 70-year experience of life in the US, it’s clear that the US does NOT have the best form of government. Nor is it truly ‘the land of the free.’ Nor is it a full democracy. Hell, it’s barely even a functional society — especially today.

What we’re supposed to have in the US is something called ‘representative democracy,’ within the framework of a constitutional republic. But over the past few decades, the power of big money and legalized bribery — aka ‘lobbying’ and ‘political donations’ — has gotten way out of hand. Now, it’s to the point that our ‘representatives’ mainly represent the moneyed interests of their biggest donors and respond primarily to intensive and expensive lobbying efforts.

In the midst of this mad scramble for power and influence, the will of the people simply gets lost. It gets lost in the shuffle and effectively… disappears. We end up being ruled by the wealthy and their obedient minions.

We get the worst of both minority AND majority rule

Yet, elections still occur. People go out and vote. Politicians still get elected every two or four years. But true democracy is fading away, as are the formative intentions of our founders and our Constitution. What we are left with, sadly, is somehow the worst of both minority AND majority rule.

But, how can this be, you might ask? How can we be stuck in the worst of both forms of ‘rule’?

This dark reality emerges from the fact that our ‘representative democracy’ has a fatal flaw — which has grown even more fatal over the past 50 years. That flaw can be expressed this way: we live in a ‘tyranny of the majority.’ Even if one ‘side’ or party receives a mere 50.1% of the vote, they suddenly get to lord it over the other ‘side’ or party, do everything they want, and refuse to do anything the other ‘side’ wants.

This means that up to 49.9% of voters get shit on, systematically, and have their priorities and values ground into the dust. It’s a ‘winner take all’ system, with the emphasis on ALL. As such, it is inherently unfair, immoral, and undemocratic. It is a system designed for bullies and control freaks, and creates a harsh society filled with leering ‘winners’ and despairing, impotent ‘losers.’

It is no way to run a sane, ethical, and compassionate society.

Competitive vs. cooperative democracies

In most European nations, their governments operate quite differently. They utilize more ‘parliamentary’ systems of governance, in which several different parties all get a portion of the vote — and then must figure out ways to work together and form coalitions to get things done. Sometimes two or more liberal-leaning parties band together to pursue a shared goal, or two or more ‘conservative’ groups do the same.

The point is, this way, many more people end up getting true representation or having their goals realized. That sort of political system demands cooperation among varied factions, and cooperative coalition-building requires give-and-take, flexibility, and compromise.

The US system, in contrast, demands endless competition and exclusion. The two major parties are fiercely antagonistic, and whenever one gains power, it usually tries hard to eradicate changes and policies enacted by the other party. We see this today in the obsessive way Trump and the GOP are working to undo every legacy, law, and policy of the Obama and Biden administrations. It’s an endless, up-and-down yo-yo… almost a bipolar nightmare, always flipping between the Democrats’ vision and that of the GOP.

Thus, it must be said: this endless process of building up, tearing down, building again, and then watching it all get torn down by the other party is certifiably c-r-a-z-y. It’s a sure recipe for endless stagnation, frustration, and political gridlock.

Who suffers the most? The American people, that’s who.

The anti-democratic insanity of gerrymandering

However, it gets worse. The iron-fisted rule of a tiny majority — while oppressing those in the minority — can be rightly described as ‘tyranny of the majority,’ but today it’s sometimes not even a real majority. This bizarre state of affairs stems directly from the odious practice known as ‘gerrymandering’ — a devious, manipulative scheme that can help a minority maintain control and win elections. It’s a well-practiced political maneuver employed by both parties, and it takes advantage of a vague loophole (and some dumb legal rulings) in our election laws and procedures.

Basically, gerrymandering allows the dominant party to engage in ‘packing’ or ‘cracking’ districts. This anti-democratic practice can only be utilized in voting for district representatives to either the state or national government (in the House of Representatives); it doesn’t work for statewide or national Senatorial or presidential elections. Gerrymandering intentionally allows the dominant state party to ‘pack’ many opposition voters into as few districts as possible, thus limiting their voting influence… OR it can create districts that ‘crack’ apart opposition voters and fragment them among many districts, thereby diluting their influence.

That’s why gerrymandered districts often have weird shapes, stretch for hundreds of miles, and can even look like writhing salamanders — which is where the ‘mander’ in gerrymander came from. Often, these bizarrely-configured ‘districts’ split communities apart or pit one group, say, city folk, against faraway farmers or small-town dwellers.

The main point, though, is that gerrymandering is a brutal form of overt political manipulation that should be illegal or tightly controlled. Yet the US Supreme Court, in its infinite folly, has approved gerrymandering as a form of political ‘free speech.’ What utter nonsense! There is nothing ‘free’ or freedom-enhancing about it, nor is it ‘speech.’ All it does is allow one party to dominate and keep dominating, even if it is actually in the minority.

Any time a party gains power, it can gerrymander the hell out of its state’s districts to ensure winning future elections even as a minority. That’s how fiercely anti-democratic gerrymandering is — and today, it is becoming both routine and compulsory. Witness Trump’s aggressive push to force GOP-led states to utilize heavy gerrymandering to ensure a GOP victory in 2026.

It’s a twisted and, frankly, ridiculous political system. Rather, it’s a twisted way of rigging the system to consistently get what your party wants… majority rule be damned.

The US system, in a nutshell

Let’s review. Even under ideal conditions, the US system of governance is a competitive ‘win-lose’ system that gives the ‘victors’ total power and control, while stealing power and influence from the ‘losers.’ That’s the giant downside of our American version of majority rule. It’s far less democratic and cooperative than the main competing version, the parliamentary system of democracy.

However, it gets worse, since the US is now sliding fast toward minority rule or even autocracy. Today’s Trumpified, MAGA-fied GOP has no qualms — at all — about manipulating our representative democracy to serve their interests, and theirs alone. Put differently, they want a ‘representative democracy’ that represents them and their (White, Christian) values, while disenfranchising and oppressing everyone else.

And let’s be clear: ‘everyone else’ consists of the majority of Americans, including even women in general.

Of course, the current US system does not embody the absolute worst form of minority rule. There’s also monarchy — the rule of one person over his/her ‘subjects’ — as well as aristocracy or oligarchy, the rule of the few over the many. However, within the context of supposed ‘democracies,’ the US is increasingly trapped in a devious, indeed unscrupulous, form of minority rule.

America faces a final reckoning

My conclusions are quite stark. Based on our current trajectory, I’d have to say that our US ‘democracy’ is a failed experiment. Over the past fifty years, amoral and unprincipled bad actors have ‘gamed the system’ to favor their own narrow interests. Now, instead of moving toward greater democracy and equality — as this nation was doing (briefly) in the 1960s and 70s — the US is careening rapidly toward less democracy and equality.

We’ve even got a right-wing, bonkers Supreme Court that favors the ‘unitary executive’ theory of governance — which is just a more ‘polite,’ underhanded way to create an effective monarchy and do away with true, functional democracy.

Sadly, it’s now easy to predict: the US and its wacked version of ‘democracy’ are not going to survive much longer. In truth, our political system is neither very democratic, nor fair, nor embracing of other cultures and their ethnic and religious values. Our system is set up to support and advance a White, Christian vision of life, which turns out to be a narrow, racist, White supremacist, and ‘Christian nationalist’ vision.

But, guess what? Whites are close to becoming… the minority in this country. Yes, White ‘rule’ is now threatened like never before. Which is exactly why today’s GOP is ruthlessly gaming the system and gerrymandering like crazy, all across the nation. Republicans are desperate to hold onto power, and will apparently do anything to keep it.

Thus, it’s clear that a huge collision of interests, values, and visions for America is coming. In fact, it’s already here and is rapidly gaining strength. It looks to be a ‘perfect storm,’ in which the US as we know it will either re-invent itself, or collapse and die.

—

This post was previously published on Rome Magazine.

***