Editorial: Thin majority a threat to democracy

Tuesday’s elections gave the majority of seats in Congress
to the Republican Party, and with it, dominion of the entire
federal government since they also control the White House and
Supreme Court.

The government has been “democratically” elected by
the public, but it doesn’t necessarily represent what the
majority of the public wants ““ especially when considering
the competitiveness of the last two years’ worth of
elections.

The presidency, held by George W. Bush, was attained without a
majority of the popular vote in the 2000 elections. Bush managed to
get in office by a freak incident that gave him a majority of
electoral college votes. He was “democratically”
elected, but he wasn’t popularly elected.

The Supreme Court is supposed to function as the neutral bastion
of fairness, completely independent from politics. But this has
become a joke. Republican-appointed justices outnumber
democrat-appointed justices 5-4. A difference of one person
influences the law hundreds of millions of Americans must follow.
Who will check this power? Congress?

In Congress, a razor-thin margin gives republicans the majority
in the Senate ““ and even those seats which granted the party
dominance were largely attained in heated races themselves. Only in
the House do Republicans have a credible lead.

But it doesn’t matter. The larger issue of Constitutional
concern is the stifling of any hope for checks and balances. Sure,
if an overwhelming majority of people support a particular party,
having it control all three institutions of government is less
problematic since its in accordance with a legitimate
“democratic” majority.

This is not the case now, though. The numbers by which
Republicans and their appointees control Congress and the Supreme
Court is not convincing; it’s too close to being evenly
split.

The fact that this gives President Bush and his comrades leeway
to change domestic policy with no restrictions seems inconsistent
with the original spirit of the Constitution ““ which meant to
safeguard the country from political extremes by setting up federal
branches with the power to force each other into ideologically
moderate compromises.

Without this safeguard, Republicans have unimpeded liberty to
prevent “wasteful spending” federal programs providing
health care, welfare and Social Security to the poor and elderly.
Instead, these programs will give way to greater military spending
for international coups. The Republican government will also
continue devaluing global environmental concerns and continue
demonstrating apathy toward international cooperation, unless it
involves facilitating corporate trade.

This places a large burden on Democrats: they must unreluctantly
challenge republicans on all controversial questions. They must
filibuster when necessary in order to halt the passage of
legislation hurtful to the non-wealthy classes. Only by doing this
can they bring back the essence of checks and balances to the
government.

The new government might be “democratically”
elected, but the narrow hold it has ethically commits it to
compromise with democrats on controversial issues if it’s to
actually run a democracy.