US Politics: Majority Tyranny Masquerading as a Republic
By: Duke University
Tags: US Politics, Republican Party, Ancient Greek, Tyranny Of The Majority, Greek Politics

By Jeremy Carballo Pineda

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell

Why hasn’t President Trump conceded the election, and why is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell supporting his decision? I believe the answer lies in understanding that modern American democracy is dangerously reminiscent of ancient Athenian democracy. Both democracies can be characterized by majority tyranny or mob rule and pride of factions. This regress has been fueled by the American conception of liberty and by a substantial increase in democratic and Republican political polarization.

We are no longer the republic that the founders envisioned in the Federalist papers. Our institutions were supposed to curtail factions, and, in James Madison’s words, “to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part.” With child separation policies at the border, the Muslim ban and police brutality in our collective memories, I feel confident proclaiming we have failed Madison.

Plato’s account of democratic decay helps understand how our modern conception of liberty has brought the nation into the early stages of tyranny. By tyranny I mean policies enacted or blocked by both chambers of Congress, the executive office, and the judicial system. The current absence of compromise across partisan lines is abetting majority tyranny — visible through the lens of Thucydides’ conception of power politics.

‘Give me liberty or give me death!’: this is the catch-all phrase for the American conception of liberty. Liberalism — the belief that individuals are equal and have individual rights protected by the state — is the guiding principle of American democracy. This liberty places the private life and the protection of the individual above all other values. Liberalism requisites that no unnecessary compulsion be placed on an individual — including the compulsion to care for your fellow citizen. Frankly, Americans want absolute freedom in their personal lives, even if it comes at the expense of their fellow citizens.

Would reaching this version of liberty and freedom be a blessing or a curse?

Plato, the Greek philosopher

I think America’s love of freedom will ultimately lead to her demise. This is because of the Greek philosopher Plato’s principle of decay. This principle and an analysis of political regimes was present in Plato’s The Republic: On Justice. He argued that “what destroys [a regime is] the insatiable desire for what it defines as the good.” When a regime is destroyed, it decays to a regime that is lesser in justice and less desired. In The Republic, Plato inscribes the regime of tyranny below democracy. Pursuing individual freedom leads “to the neglect of everything else… and prepares the demand for tyranny.” This foresight is not obvious, and Plato acknowledges this when he writes, “the absence from this kind of city of any compulsion on a citizen to rule, even if he’s qualified to do so, or to be ruled, either if he doesn’t want to… isn’t that a marvelously pleasant way of doing things, in the short run?”

I think we can all get on board with the beautiful side of individual freedom.

The disdainful moment when the fog of beauty clears is why we should be wary of our push for freedom and liberalism. The fog will give way to a “sensitivity in the souls of the citizens, which makes them angry and unable to put up with… anyone who tries to tie them down,” according to Plato. This buildup of contempt for fellow citizens and rulers will lead to disastrous effects. Plato pushes the limit of democratic decay and proclaims that “an excess of freedom seems always to give way to an excess of slavery, whether it’s individuals we’re talking about or cities.” By slavery, he means the control of one person or group by another person or group.

This speculation is not far from the truth. In April, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of emergency due to the COVID pandemic. Some of the measures the governor instated are stay-at-home orders and temporary closures of businesses;.many Michigan residents were outraged. The government tried to inhibit their individual freedom, and in response, protesters showed up to the capitol building when legislators were meeting to debate extending the governor’s state of emergency. The protestors arrived with rifles and pistols and demanded to be let into the legislative chamber. The Guardian reported that the protesters compared Whitmer — who was duly elected — to Hitler. The protesters’ freedom was inhibited by a legitimate law, but they’d be damned if they did nothing about it. It’s necessary to remind ourselves of regime decay again, as the final stage of democratic decay, according to Plato, “is a disregard for the very laws themselves.”

This individualistic liberalism has ironically united us, in the worst way possible. This is because the United States has federalism and a system of checks and balances that can prevent their immediate fall to tyranny. But these guardrails on democratic decay simply divert tyranny away from a single tyrant and towards a collective majority.

In the quest for liberalism and freedom, America’s two-party system became the answer. The Republican and Democrat parties attract broad coalitions of people who want their policy interests to be instituted regardless of the other party’s contentions — 80% of Americans feel unfavorable towards the opposing political party.

We have reverted back to the Athenian model of democracy that is ruled by majority tyranny. The Athenian model did not have political parties, but almost all political decisions were made by a simple majority ruling. In other words, they were run by mob rule.

Similarly, American citizens know that decisions in government will be made by majority rulings that will largely be along partisan lines. Gallup reports that 41% of Americans favor unified control of the federal government — meaning that one party should control both the executive branch and one chamber of congress. Only 23% of Americans want a federal government that is divided between parties.

We can attribute these statistics to the lack of bipartisanship in the federal government. After all, political polarization is currently higher than it’s been for the past 25 years. The question we are faced with now is, what has caused this?

A sculpture of Thucydides, the Greek author and historian, in Vienna, Austria.

The Greek historian Thucydides’ interpretation of power politics can provide an answer. While writing on the origins of the Peloponnesian war, he covered a speech made by the Athenians to the Corinthians. The Athenians had the stronger nation and were speaking in defense of their imperialistic tendencies to expand their empire. Thucydides, recounting the Athenian speech, writes: “if we have been overcome by three of the strongest motives — ambition, fear, and our own advantage — we have not been the

first to do this. It has always been established that the weaker are held down by the stronger.”

This is the mentality Americans are using in domestic political affairs. This conception of power was never meant for the domestic sphere in which you must care for every citizen in your nation. Thucydides’ interpretation of power in politics was meant for international affairs in which the citizens of different countries cannot be considered as equals.

Alexander Hamilton warned of the effects of partisan control in Federalist 9 when he wrote, “it is impossible to read the history of the petty republics of Greece… without feeling sensations of horror and disgust… at the … succession of revolutions … between the extremes of tyranny and anarchy.” Luckily, our political revolutions do not lead to anarchy, but just transfers of democratic or Republican majority rule in the federal government. But this does not mean that the tipping point is far from us.

The parties in power must rule with moderation and concern for the other party. Only then will we be considered a united country, and a model for the rest of the world. Let Thucydides’ prudence ring in your conscious: “when people … rule over others, they deserve to be praised if they use more justice than they have to, in view of their power.”

Peace, order, and collective benefits do not exist in a democracy which is driven by an unquenchable thirst for freedom. If we do not wish to live in a nation in which the party in power rules to the detriment of the other party every election cycle, then we must change our guiding principle or reduce the intensity in which we pursue it. Plato’s foresight on democratic decay and Thucydides’ advice on ruling justly shall steer the turbulent waters of the American experiment in democracy.

Jeremy Carballo Pineda is a Duke University junior studying political science