There was a time when the Left was very concerned about the “tyranny of the majority,” as everyone of all political persuasions should be. Once in a while, you see a few sparks popping and sizzling on that old ideological circuitry, mostly when the discussion turns to same-sex marriage.
But for the most part, tyranny of the majority is liberal policy now. A single politician winning a majority of the vote in a couple of elections is supposed to stifle all dissent. Rarely does an individual voter agree with every single position taken by a politician he supports – which is not surprising, given the size of our government – but it’s not uncommon to hear Democrat partisans claim that President Obama’s re-election victory validates everything he wants to do, obliging our representatives in Congress to ink up their rubber stamps for the next three years.
Appeals to majority rule are highly selective, of course – the Left is not at all interested in polls that show a majority of Americans disagree with ObamaCare, or the liberal gun control agenda. Abortion extremists who defy the majority beliefs of the American people are hailed as heroes. Disastrous Senate candidate Todd Akin of Missouri was undone by a position on abortion that has roughly the same level of popular support as President Barack Obama’s. Selectively embracing the blessing of majority support is a very old political game. One of the big motivations for using charges of “extremism” to destroy someone is to prevent them from shifting majority opinion – something that can, by definition, only be accomplished by people who are “outside the mainstream” today. The window of political possibility can only be moved with sustained effort.
But let’s suppose most Americans want the rights of the minority to enjoy adequate protection. We are a culture that has long celebrated iconoclasts, eccentrics, trailblazers, and those who march to the beat of a different drummer. ”I disagree with what you say, but I’ll defend your right to say it” is a common mantra for expressing First Amendment sentiments. In the heat of political contests, we sometimes forget that most of us really don’t support the concept of tyranny imposed through 51, or even 90, percent majorities.
