Tyranny Of The Majority
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Politics

Tyranny Of The Majority

Analyzing the outcome of the presidential election in context of The Federalist Papers.

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Tyranny Of The Majority
Wikimedia Commons

In light of Trump's recent presidential win, I've encountered a staggering level of hopelessness, shock, and sadness among my fellow students. My friends of color are being harassed on the street, my queer friends prepare themselves for conversion therapy, and my fellow Jews and I were shocked to discover antisemitic graffiti mere blocks from my house. Not to mention all the women I know who are rushing to get IUDs while birth control is still covered under the Affordable Care Act. We, at my extremely progressive arts school in a major American city, are treating this like it might as well be the apocalypse. And none of us saw it coming.

But you know who did? James fucking Madison.

As I watched the election results (and ensuing chaos) pour in, one phrase kept repeating in my mind: "tyranny of the majority." This concept was most famously explored in Alexis de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America," but it was actually originated by John Adams and is, in fact, one of the concepts on which the United States was founded. Perhaps in the context of current events, this phrase is negated by the fact that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, but nevertheless, many features of the US political system were put in place to protect against the will of voters like Trump's base: lower class, uneducated and violently anti-establishment. On Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning, I couldn't stop thinking about the day we read the iconic Federalist Paper No. 51 in AP Government my junior year of high school. I was so shocked when my teacher told us that our entire system of government was designed to prevent the uprising of the lower classes. In that paper, James Madison asserts that "It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure."

What Madison actually meant by "majority" was, quite simply, commoners. Especially after Shays' Rebellion, the wealthy, erudite founding fathers were concerned with protecting their own rights. They were the minority, and they feared that their power would be diminished and their right to property would be infringed upon by the poor farmers who outnumbered them and were suffering as a result of the economic recession following the Revolutionary War.

I would argue that this is, in some ways, similar to the circumstances surrounding the 2016 election. The anti-establishment anger that drove so much of America's rural working class to vote for Donald Trump at the expense of minorities such as LGBT+ and POC Americans is exactly what James Madison wanted to protect against. He went on to propose solutions:

"There are but two methods of providing against this evil: the one by creating a will in the community independent of the majority that is, of the society itself; the other, by comprehending in the society so many separate descriptions of citizens as will render an unjust combination of a majority of the whole very improbable, if not impracticable."

The first method refers to monarchies and dictatorships. The tyranny of a majority is (arguably) preferable to the tyranny of an individual, because as Madison points out, an individual in power is just as likely to be unjust to a minority as it is likely to be fair. Additionally, Madison explains that an independent and sole ruler is extremely unpredictable, given the freedom to act according to his own interest rather than that of the whole society. Let's just take a moment to thank God that Trump, even as the leader of the free world, won't be totally independent. He's already proven himself to be extremely unpredictable, though, so in a way, this is actually very applicable, especially given that this election has made it clear that we vote for candidates themselves, not just their platforms or even political parties.

The second is more relevant: "Whilst all authority in [the US] will be derived from and dependent on the society, the society itself will be broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals, or of the minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations of the majority." Madison's idea here is that the society, and the electorate, will be so diverse no one's interests will overlap enough to truly oppress a certain group. (It helps that the group he was referring to was the one holding all positions of power, but I digress.) Though we haven't seen exactly the extremism Madison is referring to, in the past week society has come together to oppress many minorities, directly and indirectly. A diverse society hasn't stopped the oppression of all the people who provide the diversity, and that terrifies me.

These past and current situations are not identical by any means, but at the very least, it is interesting to note that the founding fathers feared the uprising of the working class. Because now, they have clearly uprisen. This isn't about Trump, who is in no way working class; this is about all the people who, out of desperation and anger, voted for the candidate who was the most removed from politics. The candidate who promised to restore their jobs and make America great again, all while sticking it to the elite establishment in Washington who ignored them for so long. (For more on their motivations, check out this article.) An uprising against the elite has somehow become tied to the oppression of people of color, LGBT+ folks, Jews, and women. Suddenly, my friends and colleges are constantly watching out for this majority that is oppressing the rights of this century's minorities, not the wealthy white men of the late 1700s. The tyrannical majority is dangerous, but as Madison says later in Federalist No. 51, "Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit." Now more than ever, it is of paramount importance that we pursue liberty and justice for all.

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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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