Journalist Ari Berman says the founding fathers created a system that concentrated power in the hands of an elite minority — and that their decisions continue to impact American democracy today. Berman's book is Minority Rule. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
On the Ted radio hour, linguist Ann Curzan says she gets a lot of complaints about people using the pronoun they to refer to one person.
I sometimes get into arguments with people where they will say to me, but it can't be singular.
And I will say, but it is the history behind words causing a lot of debate.
That's on the Ted radio hour from NPR.
This is FRESH AIR.
I'm Terry Gross.
Minority rule is threatening american democracy, writes my guest Ari Berman.
To understand the fight today, he says you need to understand the longstanding clash between competing notions of majority rule and minority rights.
That clash goes back to the founding fathers, who tried to temper what they feared were the extremes of majority rule by creating institutions like the electoral college, which prevented the direct election of a president, and the Senate, which gave equal representation to states with large populations and those with small ones.
The founding fathers also reached compromises to give the South a disproportionate say so that they could ratify the constitution while remaining slaveholders.
Bermans new book, Minority Rule, connects the debates of the founding fathers and the resolutions they came up with to contemporary politics and issues like partisan gerrymandering, voting rights restrictions and anti immigration policies.
Berman has been covering voting rights issues for many years and is the author of an earlier book called give us the the modern struggle for Voting Rights in America.
He's the voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones.
Ari Berman, welcome back to FResh Air.
Hi, Terry.
Thank you so much for having me back.
My pleasure.
So minority versus majority rule is complicated.
I want to say I'm in favor of majority rule, but what about periods when the majority is racist or homophobic or patriotic historical?
Do you want that majority suppressing the rights of the minority?