Tyranny Of The Majority?

Published: February 18, 2008, 12:33 pm

I have written too much on Barack Obama lately, so let me link without comment to this Joe Knippenberg piece on Obama and the superdelegate controversy. Note one of Joe's conclusions:In the end, this spat over the status and views of the Democratic superdelegates is very telling. What it tells me is that a President Obama, with his devoted supporters, would have a hard time resisting the temptation of democratic demagoguery, of acting on behalf of a tyrannical majority. He wouldn't care much for "original intent" or for institutions that stood in the way of his doing for "the people" what he thought they wanted. He might have the best of intentions. But the price we would pay would be a further devaluation of the currency of small "r" republicanism, whose central features are rights, responsible representation, and a thoughtful concern with the public good (as against public passions).Or more hopefully, Joe suggests, Obama might just be a typical

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