Study Finds Tyranny Of Majority OK If Your Side Does It

The only factor of any significance that determines whether the tyranny of the majority remains of concern.

Tel Aviv, May 6 – Researchers have discovered that a major principle of democratic systems – namely that those systems must find ways to prevent the interests of any political minority from getting trampled – only applies when your side comprises that minority, a new report indicates. If the positions get reversed, the study determined, then “the people have spoken” and your side may therefore implement whatever policies it desires, citing “democracy” and “the will of the people.”

Scholars at Tel Aviv University and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev published a study Wednesday showing that your policies and principles, which are manifestly superior and more morally sound than those of your political opponents, must see implementation despite their – and your – disregard for the wishes and sensibilities of other citizens who have expressed differing views from yours. At the same time, were you and your political camp to find yourselves in the minority, tyranny of the majority would become a powerful political principle to uphold, so important that the very foundation of the democratic governmental system would crumble without finding accommodation for the minority’s wants and needs.

Lead study author Professor of Political Science Maiwei Ohr-Haiwei explained that the principle shifts based only on your political positions. “It’s the only factor of any significance that determines whether the tyranny of the majority remains of concern,” she observed. “A remarkable consistency emerges once we disregard the mistaken notion that the tyranny of the majority is a phenomenon to minimize or avoid; it is in fact merely a tool for the right side – meaning the correct side, which is of course left, not right – to wield while in the minority or out of political power, to prevent the wrong side – which is the right, as opposed to left, side – from implementing the will of the number of voters who actually cast ballots for that majority. In reality that majority only counts eligible voters, not the non-citizens, minors, other ineligibles, and those who chose not to vote, the last of which represent a growing segment of the population that democracies ignore at their existential peril.”

Ohr-Haiwei explained further that the same phenomenon comes into play in analyzing the legitimacy or strength of an election-winner’s mandate from the people. If your adversaries prevail, she observed, especially in a multi-party system in which one party will seldom win an outright majority, then “the majority of voters rejected them. Whereas the opposite outcome represents a convincing victory and powerful mandate” to implement your vision.

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