Alexis de Tocqueville figured out that the biggest weakness of democracy was the ability of majorities to create and protect privileges through their domination of the ballot box. He called it the “tyranny of the majority.”
He was right, which is why the Founders — anticipating this — established a ring of protections around certain minorities, namely white land-owning men who could not count on being in power. So the majority-formed government was expected to put up with antagonistic newspapers, peaceable assemblers, odd religions and petitioners of all types. The powers of the police and prosecutors were also constrained.
Although many, many groups and activities were left out, this basic principle of restraining the majority became the touchstone of American governance and has guided the expansion of civil rights ever since.
But, it turns out, the majority can control the minority in far more ways than just legal measures and government policies. When it comes to racism in America, we know that suppressing minority votes and adopting arrest and sentencing guidelines that target minorities are egregious violations of the principle of constraining the majority. We also understand that the majority can also diminish the minority with symbolic actions, subtle social exclusion, discrimination in the workplace, setting up roadblocks to education and business opportunities, calling the police to keep minorities in line and so forth. This is its own form of tyranny, and until the majority (or, at least, three-fifths) decides to entirely change its ways, it will continue to be tyrannical.
As it happens, our society’s approach to the COVID-19 pandemic echoes some of these tendencies. Roughly three-fifths of adults in America are at low risk of contracting and dying from the coronavirus, while close to two-fifths (38%, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation) are at higher risk. But in almost every state — including Utah — the majority has decided that the minority should simply shut up, hole up and accept the reopening of the economy. The majority claims that it should be allowed to engage in risky behavior and the minority should just disappear — or take their chances. In its own way, this represents a case of tyranny of the majority.
It’s worth mentioning that recent studies indicate that if only three-fifths of people wore masks in public (a rare practice in Utah where cases are climbing exponentially), this would likely be enough to slow the spread of the virus significantly. In other words, despite opening businesses and parks and theaters, we could slow the epidemic locally by simply wearing masks in public. The majority, again, has the power to protect the rights of the minority by changing their attitudes and behavior.
The two problems overlap in that the COVID-19 epidemic has been especially devastating in minority communities. They are roughly twice as likely to die from the virus than whites and Asians, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Blacks and Latinos account for roughly 40% of total COVID-19 deaths to date, despite making up only 30% of the total population.
And while endemic racism has obviously had a far more devastating toll across the centuries than the recent attacks on the rights of at-risk populations, there is an interesting parallel that in both cases the solution depends largely on the three-fifths majority deciding to behave as de Tocqueville and the Founders hoped.
Kendall Stiles is a professor of political science at Brigham Young University.