Fear of 'mob rule' was a thing by Messrs. Hamilton and Madison. They were rich, white, educated men of property, whom they believed were the only types of people who should be in government or at least in leadership roles, and they feared 'factions' which is a dog whistle for 'poor people and minorities'. Oh, you can moan about they being 'guild members' 'professional groups' and what not, but they feared the lessers of society more than anything else, from the guild members on down. Oh, don't tell me they didn't. Their writings in the Fed Papers reek of that fear, it's not explicit, but it's there. When the EC was created, the electors were to be nominated by party operators who specifically excluded the lessers of society, the whole purpose of the EC is to deny the lessers of society control of government. Why? Because if they controlled the government, they would act in ways contrary to the interests of men like Messrs. Hamilton and Madison, rich, educated white men of property. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._10#The_question_of_faction Federalist No. 10 continues the discussion of the question broached in Hamilton's Federalist No. 9. Hamilton there addressed the destructive role of a faction in breaking apart the republic. The question Madison answers, then, is how to eliminate the negative effects of faction. Madison defines a faction as "a number of citizens, whether amounting to a minority or majority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community."[15] He identifies the most serious source of faction to be the diversity of opinion in political life which leads to dispute over fundamental issues such as what regime or religion should be preferred. Madison argues that "the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property."[16] He states, "Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society."[16] You see? He's arguing that lessers of society, when the rubber hits the road, he's afraid that the lessers of society, 'factions united for some singular purpose' should they acquire power, would vote for policies that were to their benefit, and not for the 'good of society as a whole'. but what the hell does that mean? I'll tell you what it means, it means not Rich White Man's Society, as a whole. Providing some examples of the distinct interests, Madison identified a landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, and "many lesser interests".[16] Madison insists that they all belonged to "different classes" that were "actuated by different sentiments and views."[16] Thus, Madison argues, these different classes would be prone to make decisions in their own interest, and not for the public good. A law regarding private debts, for instance, would be "a question to which the creditors are parties on one side, and the debtors on the other." To this question, and to others like it, Madison notes that, though "justice ought to hold the balance between them," the interested parties would reach different conclusions, "neither with a sole regard to justice and the public good." But, alas, their worst fears have come true. See, mob rule is what we have today. How so? Republicans are claiming the majority is a mob. But, what they don't grasp is that this is an absurd claim. Biden won with 81,000,000 votes. Trump lost with 74,000,000 votes. So what, we are to believe, according to Republicans, their claim that 81 million votes is a mob, but 74 million votes is not? Utterly preposterous. In both groups, poor people, non property owners, non educated persons, blacks and minorities, groups united by a singular purpose ( evangelicals, anyone?) all of whom Madison and Hamilton feared as the 'mob' exist, they exist as majorities IN BOTH GROUPS. All we have now are mobs. These fears of men 250 years ago are today's reality, and their concerns, today, are MOOT. this idea that we must cling to the notions of men 250 years ago is utter nonsense. Today is a republic of a diversity of people, rich, poor, and everything in between. Today, all we have are mobs on both sides. Get over it. PS, the above is eloquently explained in the following article, far better than I am able to do it. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/10/james-madison-mob-rule/568351/ AMERICA IS LIVING JAMES MADISON’S NIGHTMARE The Founders designed a government that would resist mob rule. They didn’t anticipate how strong the mob could become. By Jeffrey Rosen James madison traveled to Philadelphia in 1787 with Athens on his mind. He had spent the year before the Constitutional Convention reading two trunkfuls of books on the history of failed democracies, sent to him from Paris by Thomas Jefferson. Madison was determined, in drafting the Constitution, to avoid the fate of those “ancient and modern confederacies,” which he believed had succumbed to rule by demagogues and mobs. yes, Demagogues like Trump, eh? Madison’s reading convinced him that direct democracies—such as the assembly in Athens, where 6,000 citizens were required for a quorum—unleashed populist passions that overcame the cool, deliberative reason prized above all by Enlightenment thinkers. “In all very numerous assemblies, of whatever characters composed, passion never fails to wrest the sceptre from reason,” he argued in The Federalist Papers, the essays he wrote (along with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay) to build support for the ratification of the Constitution. “Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.” Madison and Hamilton believed that Athenian citizens had been swayed by crude and ambitious politicians who had played on their emotions. But that's pretty much today's politics, is it not? Madison wrote in “Federalist No. 10.” The Framers designed the American constitutional system not as a direct democracy but as a representative republic, where enlightened delegates of the people would serve the public good. They also built into the Constitution a series of cooling mechanisms intended to inhibit the formulation of passionate factions, to ensure that reasonable majorities would prevail. The people would directly elect the members of the House of Representatives, but the popular passions of the House would cool in the “Senatorial saucer,” as George Washington purportedly called it: The Senate would comprise natural aristocrats chosen by state legislators rather than elected by the people. And rather than directly electing the chief executive, the people would vote for wise electors—that is, propertied white men—who would ultimately choose a president of the highest character and most discerning judgment. In other words, men like Messrs. Hamilton and Madison. God forbid anyone like Pelosi, Cheney, Obama, AOC, etc., be allowed in leadership roles. The point is, the concerns of the founders, the mechanisms they thought would prevent today's reality, no longer is that world, a world were lessers of society, smaller groups united for a singular purpose, are excluded. Today, we are more enlightened, we are more inclusive, allowing blacks, women, minorities, affluent and not so affluent, allowed in leadership roles, even factions united for a singular purpose, and this is as it should be, but it is not the world the founding fathers wanted. So, this idea that we are not a democracy, that only the minority is the better group, and that only the majority is a 'mob' is an absurd notion, and this idea what, in modernity, we must clinging to the nations of men who lived in world far removed from modern times, who lived 250 years ago, is utterly ridiculous. We'll keep the constitution, of course, no one is suggesting getting rid of it, noting that it was, in many places, written in generalized language, intentionally so, because they knew that nations evolve, values evolve, and the document must be allowed to be flexible, to be reinterpreted as societies evolved, and that is why they created the Supreme Court. So, let's apply what is still relevant that they wrote of, long ago, and discard what no longer applies, and have the wisdom to know which is which. Apparently, Republicans, at least those on the hard right, do not.
