The Will of the People, and the Won't

Do we think these people represent the majority of Americans?

I remember, back in 1992, when Colorado passed Amendment 2, a state constitutional provision ensuring neither the state, nor any local government chartered by the state, could provide any specified legal protections based on sexual orientation. It was the first state law anywhere specifically targeting sexual orientation as a non-protected status, and passed among Colorado voters by a straight majority, with a six-point majority.

However, it never took effect, because court challenges paused implementation. The amendment, which again passed a statewide referendum with a simple majority, languished in legal limbo for nearly four years before the U.S. Supreme Court negated it in 1996. At the time, I lived in Ogallala, Nebraska, fifteen minutes from the Colorado line. And I began hearing the common line: “Why can’t politicians just give people what they want?”

My friend began answering that question with a response I’d never previously considered: “The people of Alabama under George Wallace wanted segregation by force. Should America have given it to them?” I doubt that argument changed anybody’s minds, because we know facts seldom persuade anybody whose positions are ironclad. However, it certainly ended the conversation, because people never had any counterclaim that didn’t make them sound ringingly bigoted.

I thought about these two clashing arguments recently when I read about a recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey, which found a straight majority of Americans approve of Medicare For All—at least hypothetically. That support goes up or down, conditionally, when surveyors begin explaining different ways politicians might implement the policy in real life. But at least in theory, Americans support extending Medicare provisions to everybody, regardless of ability to pay.

We could go on: a majority of Americans think abortion should be legal in most or all cases. Most Americans think we should protect the unemployed, the elderly, and the environment. Popular support for the Green New Deal runs above eighty percent, commanding a clear majority of even Republicans. Straight majorities support America’s longstanding weak-tea social platform, and depending on the survey, a majority even favor expanding it.

But majorities have historically approved some pretty awful stuff. Recent complaints about “gentrification” make the mass removal of Black and Brown communities from cities seem sudden and urgent, yet highly popular urban revitalization projects in postwar America, many supported by a majority of returning White veterans, so disproportionately hurt urban POC communities that James Baldwin famously called urban renewal “Negro removal.” That’s just one ready example.

Do we think these people represent the majority of Americans?

Reasonable people, studying history, would probably conclude that just because a majority wants something, doesn’t mean they should receive it. But categorically denying majority appeals defies the principles upon which liberty-minded republics, like America, were founded. If a sufficient proportion of the populace demands something, we should consider why they consider this goal desirable, even if we don’t necessarily acquiesce to their demands.

The largest number of Americans want clean water, clean air, clean soil. They want citizens to have access to top-quality medical care, unconstrained by their private economic circumstances. They want work, and not just meaningless work as bean-counters or burger-flippers, but work which actively contributes to improving humanity’s condition on this fleeting globe. To my Distributist-minded philosophy, these sound like perfectly reasonable demands.

But what if people’s demands change? History demonstrates that very rapid changes in widespread political philosophy can reverse themselves equally rapidly. Only in the last fifteen years have majorities of American voters approved gay-rights initiatives by ballot; remember that California’s Amendment 8, now one of the most widely reviled pieces of legislation, received a straight majority in one of America’s most progressive-minded states. Much like Colorado’s Amendment 2.

If the people are free, it follows that the people are free to be wrong.

At this writing, an anti-LGBTQ discrimination bill has stalled in the Nebraska legislature. It’s difficult to gauge, in a state like Nebraska, how widespread any support might be for anti-discrimination measures; but multiple state agencies, private companies, the mayors of the state’s two largest cities, and several philanthropic groups, have endorsed the measure. I find little evidence of organized opposition, yet the bill remains stalled.

The people wanting something, anything, doesn’t necessarily justify that thing. America’s constitutional checks specifically aim to thwart an unjust majority. But if enough people believe something, shouldn’t we at least seriously consider that thing? Well, no, because majorities can shift overnight. I wish I had the answers, or anyway more convincing evidence. But the longer I contemplate this question, the more adamant and insoluble the questions I uncover have become.