As I’ve noted previously, the Founding Fathers weren’t reactionaries, but they weren’t democrats, either. If you were making the case for democracy to the FFs, with the benefit of over 200 years of hindsight, what would you say?
Here are my arguments:
- CHANGED CONDITIONS: The 18th century assumption would have been that the bulk of the populace didn’t have the education or the requisite amount of information to make informed choices about matters of state. That is not true today; if anything, we are inundated with too much information.
- EQUALITY OF HUMANITY: While individuals are not equal in terms of intellectual talent, they are unquestionably equal in the sense that they have the same ability to experience life (the FFs, not a religious bunch, might have put this in terms of the equal value of souls, but I doubt it). If you assume, as most of the FFs did, that politics is an exercise in addressing conflicting interests, why should the interests of one individual be automatically preferred to another?
- MADISONIAN FACTIONS: Madison made the argument that the geographical diversity of the country made it difficult for factions to combine and oppress minorities. That argument doesn’t look too great today, given the cultural and political polarization of our country, but it still has some merit.
- WISDOM OF THE CROWD: There are even game shows based on this premise, which usually works.
- NO BETTER ALTERNATIVE: If you wanted to identify an American aristocracy, who would be included? As noted in previous posts, you certainly can’t identify it with the “real Americans” beloved by reactionaries.
Are these arguments compelling? I would say yes, particularly when the system has liberal guardrails built in to protect individual rights. However, as we have seen over the last few years, the guardrails alone are no guarantee that the system will continue to exist and thrive; the public has to buy into them, as well.