The paper of record in the United States is actively engaged in undermining the foundations of our republic. If asked, I'm sure that the guest columnists and opinion editors would simply say that they are asking questions, but in fact the foundation the paper has been laying, for a few years now, is one upon which the remaking of the Constitution to abandon its founding ideals has begun.
The New York Times has been calling for the end of democratic process on the false premise that in some way this might save it. The two primary targets are the Electoral College and the Supreme Court. Many on the left think the former should be abolished, as it does not allow for majority rule and the latter should be expanded for the same reason.
With headlines like "The Constitution Is Sacred. Is It Also Dangerous," "Why I Won't Vote," "The First Amendment Is Out of Control," and "Elections Are Bad for Democracy," for which the title was later changed over backlash, the Times is creating the conditions for authoritarianism. The Times has published so many of these columns, like "The Constitution is Broken and Should not be Reclaimed," "Let's Give Up on the Constitution," "The Constitution Won't Save Us From Trump," and "This Is the Story of How Lincoln Broke the U.S. Constitution." Calling our foundational laws dangerous? Detailing the reasons to not uphold one's duty to vote? Alleging that the First Amendment is too broad in protecting Americans' free speech? Claiming elections themselves are bad for democracy? Encouraging Americans to literally give up on their founding documents? What does all that sound like?
Jennifer Szalai's article about how "dangerous" the Constitution is takes aim at the Electoral College, that body of the American politic that protects the nation from being subjected to a tyranny of the majority. It gives smaller states a say in the election of the nation's president in an egalitarian spirit similar to that which allows for every state to have an equal say in the Senate, with two senators each and gives every state at least one representative in the US House of Representatives. But for Szalai and the Times, not allowing the major population centers to run rough-shod over the entire American populace has created a "tyranny of the minority."
"The argument that what ails the country’s politics isn’t simply the president, or Congress, or the Supreme Court, but the founding document that presides over all three, has been gaining traction, especially among liberals," writes Szalai, as she details so many accounts of complaints from leftist scholars and authors who think the Electoral College is just a racist remnant of a dying republic.
"The anguish is," Szalai writes, "in some sense, a flip side of veneration. Americans have long assumed that the Constitution could save us; a growing chorus now wonders whether we need to be saved from it." As she digs into the history used to justify the racism of the document, namely that the founders could not agree on whether or not to chuck slavery in the document.
The compromise reached by delegates at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia was that the Southern states could not count those they kept enslaved as full persons as it would give those states an unfair advantage in the House and because those representatives would necessarily be representing people who were not permitted to vote. Instead, those enslaved persons would count as only 3/5ths. This widely misunderstood provision was a way to keep the union intact, not a way to legitimize slavery. So, too, was the Electoral College.
Szalai explores the view that these elements and a refusal to change them results in a "Constitution worship" of originalists. She writes "the damages of Constitution worship extend to the structure of the political system itself. National politics gets increasingly funneled through the judiciary, with control of the courts — especially the Supreme Court — becoming a way to consolidate power regardless of what the majority of people want. This disempowerment of majorities, combined with political gridlock and institutional paralysis outside the judiciary, fuels popular disaffection. The document that’s supposed to be a bulwark against authoritarianism can end up fostering the widespread cynicism that helps authoritarianism grow."
This argument states that a refusal to allow a tyranny of the majority results in authoritarianism, rather than seeing that a tyranny of the majority IS authoritarianism. Many, if not all, of the checks and balances elucidated in the Constitution are designed to prevent the mob from obliterating the individual. Each of our cherished amendments in the Bill of Rights testifies to the importance and necessity of individual liberty over group think and group actions. Our criminal code of due process bears that out. At the federal level, there's a reason there are three branches of government, including a bicameral legislature. It's to ensure that the people have as much say as possible, as much opportunity to be heard, whether on large or small matters.
"The First Amendment Is Out of Control" states that protecting free speech and free expression is a problem for national security. "Elections Are Bad for Democracy" posits that "we might be better off eliminating elections altogether." Meanwhile, "Why I Won't Vote," published on Independence Day, claims that "Voting is, strictly speaking, pointless." In each of these, authors make claims that America would be better without its core tenets, that the country would be better if citizens gave up their right to self-determination.
We hear so much about democracy, who is attacking it, who is trying to save it, and with a sleight of hand, the Times, and their allied Democrats, have twisted the rhetoric to make it appear that destroying democracy is the way to save it and that upholding individual rights is somehow anti-democratic. Both of these are lies.
Is the Times being edgy? Salacious? Controversial? Maybe. But it's also more than likely that the Times is planting seeds to normalize these ideas, to bring about the idea as commonplace that the majority should bowl over all opposition, crushing the little guy, and our individual rights, under their trampling heels.
