REPUBLICAN RULE
SIMON BARBER: America’s rigged system helps keep minority in power
America is subject to minority rule, by no means as cruel or despotic as that under which the majority of South Africans suffered until 1994, but unrepresentative of most citizens’ wishes nonetheless, sticking us with a president we tell pollsters we consider a national embarrassment. On issue after issue — from gun control to abortion to civil and worker rights to protection of the environment to healthcare— the choices made by the people elected to federal office are not those reputable surveys say most of us desire. Three-million more of us voted for Hillary Clinton than for Donald Trump. We were denied our choice because the founding fathers, in their wisdom, feared that a truly representative system would quickly devolve into ochlocracy, rule by the uncouth and easily demagogued mob. There was also the matter of slavery. Federating the states into a union required reassuring slave owners that no majority would ever strip them of their chattels.So our president is chosen by an e...
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