The Tyranny of The Majority?

Remember when Trump first announced his Muslim ban? People proclaiming that more people supported it than not in America. My response (in my head), so what? Every frigging day we are told regarding Brexit that the majority has spoken. The minority lost and should just accept this and move on, even though a bunch of far-right wing ideological dimwits are now in charge. My response (in my head), fuck off.

Just because more people agree with an idea than are against it, does not automatically make it a good idea. There are lots of idiots in this world. And quite frankly asking anyone to vote to improve the conditions of minority communities is rarely going to work. People are selfish and will vote in their supposed best interest, even if it ends up leading to the significant harm and detriment to themselves or others. When people voted for Brexit and Trump they voted against something, not for something. They wanted to stiff the man. One woman on a call-in show, in the UK, stated that the GDP was not her GDP. On one level one can understand her frustration that she has been left behind, on another level one must question how on earth the future prosperity of the nation should rest in the decisions made by some who do have not the faintest clue about how shit works.

Looking to the majority to make decisions in the best interests of all people is not always the best plan in the world. That is why referendum do not work very well. It is not nearly nuanced enough. It can only work in strong democracies with effective oppositions, with leaders who will hold the feet to the fire of the people who are in charge. When you have leaders, who bow to the will of the supposed majority without considering everyone else you end up seeing people marching in the streets. Trying to silence the minority just because you think your shit don’t stink because a group of people think (or have been conned) just like you, will never produce the results you want, unless of course you actively wish to see the suppression of anything other than group think.

In recent times Ireland has had referenda on both reproductive justice and gay marriage. In both instances they took the progressive choice. Marvellous. But what is they hadn’t? What is they had decided to say no too choice? Would the rights of women and gay rights suddenly disappear? If we consider some of the great advances in the last half of the last century, they were done despite the majority. The Civil Rights Act would never have been enacted if it needed the support of the majority, but today would anyone claim that it was not the right thing to do?

Just because the majority thinks something a good / bad plan does not necessarily mean it is. So, when I am told more people agreed with the Muslim ban than disagree with it, that does not make the plan any less stupid or less Islamophobic, it just increases my disappointment in my fellow man. And when I am told that we will exit the common market because the majority voted for Brexit, it does not make me think that I can trust my fellow man to have voted in my nations interests and that they are obviously seeing something I am not, it makes me cross at the short-sighted policy that will impact on everyone’s standard of living, remainers and brexiters alike.

The majority is not always right and trying to insist that they are seems somewhat tyrannical.

Just sayin'