The least appreciated consequence of the Great Compromise -- the 1787 bargain that gave each state equal representation in the Senate (among other things) -- is that over time as the nation rolled westward, constantly adding states, and especially after the Civil War, this compromise has had the effect of elevating rural America to a position of tremendous predominance vastly disproportionate to its numbers. The Great Compromise has ended up superempowering rural America in the Senate. And what does this mean? Poll after poll shows that rural Americans have distinctly different values than urban Americans: they are much more likely to be fundamentalist, to be opposed to abortion and homosexuality, and the like. These are the people that H.L. Mencken once called the "booboisie," the Bible-thumping tongues-speaking "real people" led by Elmer Gantry and George Wallace and Glen Beck.
The problem is not just that talk radio gives the most extreme elements in America a gigantic megaphone. The real problem is that the historical dynamics of United States history have given these extreme elements absolute control of the U.S. Senate. The gang of six purportedly deciding America's health care future all come from Hicksville. Senator Chuck Grassley from Iowa slobbers Beckisms about killing grandma. They indulge oratorial idiocy like protecting Medicare from government interference. Above all, they beat the anti-abortion drums like they were the biggest tribe in the jungle. In fact, in numbers, the dense urban states with their great growing history of diversity and toleration of alternative lifestyles could crush the rural booboisie. But as we see everyday in every way, numbers don't count in the United States Senate. Representation in the United States Senate is INVERSELY PROPORTIONAL to the population of a state. Above all the scheme favors highly rural states like 13 of the last 14 states that came into the union after the Civil War.
It is an irony in the great tableau of American history that a nation as innovative and tolerant of diversity in religion and custom as ours, a nation of such booming broad-shouldered cities, should now increasingly be governed by yahoos from sticksville with antedeluvian ideas, rural true believers easy to lead about by their ideological nose rings by unscrupulous leaders with ulterior motives. But then, that's democracy -- or rather, that's anti-democracy.
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