What follows is an article by the "Atlantic." Like most of the articles by this particular publication it is well written and well reasoned. I am posting it for your consideration and speculation.
The thrust of the piece is that America is not nor has it ever been a democratic state. If one defines democracy as rule by the people, the 51% that is, then the Bill of Rights itself is an undemocratic instrument. Does it not protect unpopular speech from censorship by the government that presumes to represent the people and unfamiliar religions from discrimination by the majority - the 51%, that Jefferson believed need to be watched? The Supreme Court, with no accountability to the people and a kind of absolute power more reminiscent of a ruling aristocracy, is an undemocratic institution.
The Founding Fathers devised the Electoral College in the firm belief that the people, the majority, the 51% were not to be trusted to elect their president. The writers and signers of the Constitution believed that the tendency of the 51% might be to elect people with “talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity”; in other words the people would have a tendency to sweep dangerous demagogues into office and the Electors were there to prevent that catastrophe.
Question: Come December 19th when the Electors vote - hardly the independent minded people the Founders imagined, more like party sycophants - will we be witnessing the greatest irony in the history of the modern world; or a cosmic joke, the punch line to which we are not yet privy? You decide.
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