Rand Paul says the idea of majority rule 'goes against' American democracy

As Democrats warn of an ongoing assault on democracy and some Republicans continue to downplay the effects of the Jan. 6 Capitol riots and former President Donald Trump's stolen-election rhetoric, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has seemingly dismissed it all — even racist 20th-century Jim Crow laws — as just a side effect of the democratic system.

Paul "[embraces] the notion" that minority party pushback is the "essence" of America's representative democracy, "distinguishing it from direct democracy, where the majority rules and is free to trample the rights of the minority unimpeded," per a The New York Times article published Monday.

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Brigid Kennedy

Brigid Kennedy worked at The Week from 2021 to 2023 as a staff writer, junior editor and then story editor, with an interest in U.S. politics, the economy and the music industry.