Source: Niskanen Center
by Steven Teles
“Critics of right-wing populism, whether in the U.S. or abroad, have emphasized its minoritarian tendencies and diagnosed them as the most prominent symptom of ‘democratic backsliding.’ But there is a problem with this account, which is that almost no one who studies how public policy has actually been made in the United States over the last half-century would characterize the status quo from which we are supposedly backsliding as mostly majoritarian. In fact, the most salient changes in how we make public policy – changes that were mostly driven by the center-left — over the last half century — have made policymaking pervasively less majoritarian. It may thus be best to understand right-wing populism as a reaction to minoritarianism, at least as much as an instance of it.” (03/21/25)
https://www.niskanencenter.org/its-time-for-liberals-to-confront-their-own-anti-majoritarianism