Representative Democracy protects us from runaway majoritarianism
On the evening of election day November 7th, 2000, then-Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush won the White House by carrying 30 states and their 271 electoral college votes. His Democratic opponent, Al Gore, won only 20 states and their 266 electoral college votes – despite receiving over 500,000 more votes in the popular national poll. Notwithstanding his losing the popular national vote (and following some considerable post-election controversy around the election results in the state of Florida), Mr. Bush was inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States of America on January 20th, 2001. At his inauguration, Mr. Bush was met with intense public protests which lead to his motorcade being famously pelted with eggs during the inaugural parade. “Illegitimate President!” the protestors shouted, along with chants of “one person, one vote!” These protests, as well-intentioned as they were, were as misguided in 2001 as they were in 2017 when Donald Trump was inaugurated as President despite losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton; and as misguided as they are today in Canada with Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party claiming victory in October’s federal election despite receiving nearly 250,000 fewer votes than their chief rivals, Andrew Scheer and the Conservative Party.
The reason why those who point to the discrepancy between the popular vote and national election results as evidence of a broken democratic system are misguided, is because they are overlooking the grave dangers of absolute majoritarianism. Indeed, couching against majoritarianism is a chief hallmark of modern democratic systems. For example, the Charter is intended not only to be a check on government by establishing our fundamental rights as Canadians, but also as a knock-on check on those who elect these governments. The Charter does not restrict the populaces’ populist tendencies directly; but indirectly through checks on the governments they elect.
Likewise, our first-past-the-post representative democratic system (much like the American representative democratic system) also has indirect checks on majoritarianism through the way we elect our governments. In the United States, this is achieved through a state-based system of individualizing Presidential elections; framing the event as 50 seperate state-wide elections, rather than one massive coast-to-coast contest. This ensures that small states like conservative North Dakota or liberal Vermont have their voices heard in a national election; rather than be completely drowned out by massive voting blocs in New York, California, Texas, or Florida. Much the same, our riding system in Canada ensures that the unique local voices in heavily-NDP urban Hamilton are treated the same as those in heavily-Liberal rural Newfoundland or heavily-Conservative suburban Calgary.
It is this system that allows a party like the Bloc Quebecois – a regional party which has no hope of ever winning the national popular vote – to remain competitive within the localities it chooses to contest, and to elect the third-largest party caucus to Parliament (as was done in October). Without representative democracy, the Bloc Quebecois would have no chance of holding sway in government; and the voices of many Quebecers would be largely erased in a national contest. One need not ponder for too long how dangerous that would be for Canada at a national level. And see, there exactly is the trick. Representative democracy – by lessening the importance of the proverbial “national mob” in favour of the soft promotion of localized interests and politics – largely strengthens the national project in the aggregate by giving everyone involved a voice at the table.
This brings us back to the Liberals and Conservatives. On October 21st, 2019, the Liberal Party won 33.07% of the popular vote in the federal election to the 34.4% won by the Conservatives. However, the Liberal Party finished the evening having won 157 ridings – or local races – compared to only 121 for the Conservative Party. This is because massive majorities – over 60% in many ridings – in the Western Canadian provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta voted for the Conservatives. This, of course, was enough to win nearly all local races in those provinces, but was not enough to put them on top nationally. Conversely, the Liberal Party won most local races in much of the rest of the country (albeit with much smaller majorities; or often, pluralities). This resulted in the party winning more seats – and thus the election- without topping the popular vote.
This is exactly how it is supposed to work: with the local issues of one region not being able to sway the entirety of a national election. Recent challenges in the resource sector of Western Canada are not supposed to decide our national government. This is no different than proposing that the regional frustrations which took place during the global recession (due to the resultant decimation of the manufacturing sector in Quebec and Southern Ontario) should not have (and indeed, did not) decide the 2008 or 2011 elections against the then-victorious Conservative Party. Similarly, a massive liberal lean in states like California and New York should not decide a national American election for the other 48 states in the union. Yes, every person deserves a voice; but in major national democratic projects like the United States or Canada, so does every region and locality.
Moving forward, I think it is wise for both conservatives and liberals to appreciate the representative democratic system we have been blessed with and accept its outcomes. I can easily imagine a day soon where the Conservative Party will win government in Canada despite losing the popular vote (perhaps due to liberal-leaning parties running up massive tallies in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal, and the Conservatives winning modestly everywhere else). Likewise, I can also easily imagine a day where a Democrat will win the White House despite losing the popular vote (perhaps on the hypothetical account of the already somewhat-Republican mid-Western states voting overwhelmingly for the Republican candidate if, say, a Democrat ever ran openly on repealing the 2nd amendment). And I imagine these outcomes will be welcomed by those who stand to benefit from them, while being called illegitimate by those who feel left out. However, both sides ought to remember that the pendulum can always swing in the other direction. My name is Corey LeBlanc, and that’s just my opinion.