To Democrats, democracy means rule by . . . THEM

Democracy in America: What is it? Whatever it is, we know that it is under siege.Barely a moment goes by without tocsins sounding about various threats to “our democracy.” It used to be that the biggest, baddest threat to “our democracy” was Donald Trump.

Then a curious thing happened.When it comes to “threats to our democracy,” Trump seems to have been overshadowed somewhat by a new threat: the Constitution.Today, if you are truly up-to-date, you know that the Constitution, while venerable, is basically at odds with democracy.The Constitution allowed Donald Trump to become president.

Ergo the Constitution is “dysfunctional.” QED. Originally, “democracy” meant rule by “the demos,” the people.But most political theorists from Plato and Aristotle on down have been suspicious of “pure,” direct, unchaperoned democracy.James Madison, in Federalist 10, warned that throughout history most democracies have been as “short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” It was part of the founders’ genius to have forged a species of popular rule that carefully modulated the passions of the masses in such a way that protected individual liberty in the face of the imperatives of democracy. Hence the Electoral College, which is a primary mechanism for preserving federalism.

Hence, too, two senators to every state: Why should Wyoming, say, be swamped by the ethos of California?When Benjamin Franklin, emerging from the Constitutional Convention in 1787, was asked what sort of government he and his colleagues had forged, he famously said “A republic, if you can keep it.” A republic, nota bene, not a democracy.The difference is critical.There is a sense, then, in which the Constitution’s detractors are right about its being “antidemocratic.” It is antidemocratic in the sense that it is pro-republic.The limits on federal power set forth in the Constitution make it a bulwark against many sorts of abuse, including that m...