And I’m just as guilty of it as the people I criticize. I pay very little attention to local and state elections and as a result the party I do not support dominates local and state politics even though they are in a minority. Those majorities, of course, eventually filter up and influence National elections and we get people like Trump and the Freedom Caucus. I have no one to blame but myself, and people like me. Fortunately, national politics is more responsive to the needs of the nation rather than those of the local and regional bosses (The Presidency is the only office all Americans vote for). But the local and regional apparats still exercise an influence all out of proportion to their numbers.

I live in a retirement community with a democratically elected Homeowners Association, but I am too lazy to get involved in community affairs, either by running for office or going to town meetings. So I find myself vulnerable to the wishes of busybodies and rabble-rousers who insist on meddling in community affairs. Unfortunately, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. The folks who feel the most threatened tend to be the most politically active, not those who feel they are doing all right.

Our founding fathers, like the Roman aristocracy and wealthy merchant and landowning families, recognized this; they hated democracy (rule by the “mob”) so they designed a Federal Republic that ensured only “gentlemen of property” controlled the national government and only local and regional merchants dominated those levels. So majorities (the poor are always in the majority) never ran the show. America has come a long way to dismantle the worst abuses of this system over the last couple of hundred years, but enough of it remains to make sure some abuses remain. And when the gentlemen of property feel threatened now, they have learned how to enlist the rabble to help them with mass communication.

I still believe in democracy, but until we get rid of crooked redistricting, voter suppression, gerrymandering, the electoral college, private campaign financing and other means of influencing the electorate through economic power, there will always be enough widespread ignorance, and indifference, to give the propertied class a veto.