Surely you’ve noticed one of your social media friends — a Republican — saying, “We’re a republic, not a democracy.” I don’t know why you keep people like that on your friends list, but that person is technically correct. In an interview with Slate, Astra Taylor explains the whole thing.
The Founding Fathers were very concerned with protecting minority rights. They didn’t understand the phrase minority rights as we understand it today—protections for trans people, immigrants, et cetera. But they were very concerned with the rights of the opulent. And that’s one of their words, right? Madison said that it’s very important to structure the Senate as they did to protect the rights of the opulent minority against the landless masses.
In keeping with the original intent of liberalism, the Founding Fathers only saw white men who owned land as full citizens. That “opulent minority” should have power, while everyone else only had rights. Neoliberalism is just the further evolution of that idea with a more mathematical justification — money is used to quantify the value of everything, including human beings, and only people with a lot of money should have power according to neoliberals.
Thankfully, the United States has been heading toward more and more democracy — but that really scares Republicans. Republicans hate democracy; they think everyone who isn’t like them is inferior and not competent to vote.
