Mob Rule

I've seen several comments lately about how our wise founding fathers designed our electoral system to avoid "mob rule". And there is certainly plenty of documentation that many of them were afraid of "mob rule", including crowd favourite Alexander Hamilton

In 1789, 6% of the population was allowed to vote (approximately 66% now). The requirement then was white rich male. Since we've partially gotten rid of the white and male requirements, let's look at 6% of the modern population. That means you personally would have to make at least $250,000 to even be allowed to vote. And remember, this 6% is the rabble that our system was supposedly wisely designed to keep under control and prevent from having a say.

Ah, but we're more inclusive now, right? Let's pretend there was no voter suppression. To help keep this mob down (those slobs that only make a little over $300,000), our senate has two senators per state. Due to the way the population is distributed, on average, a black person's vote has 80% of the power of a white person. Hispanics, 58%. Sure glad we can feel proud of improving things from... 60%. (To be fair, the 3/5ths in the Constitution was giving the owner an additional 3/5ths of a vote for each person you owned, which is so very much worse that how we normally tell that story).

What about voter suppression you say? Well, that's a hard thing to track. We as a country are horrible about voting, and we make it hard to vote, and we try to convince each other our votes don't matter, and our Attorney General says we shouldn't trust votes any way, and then we intimidate, bully, reduce access, and implement policies that make it hard for undesirable populations to vote that are different from poll taxes and literacy tests in name only, The net result? Exit polling suggests 70% of the voting populace is white, while we make up 61% of the adult population.

So, when we nod sagely and talk about how we are protecting ourselves from "mob rule" (that you probably didn't even qualify to belong to back then)... Maybe you haven't thought it through, and don't intend it, but you are rooting for the disenfranchisement of your fellow citizens, and due to the system you are extolling, they probably have different a color of skin than you, and that, my friend, is the very manifestation of systemic racism.