Keen On

Should we be defending American democracy if it never really existed? That’s the controversial thesis at the heart of Osita Nwanevu’s new book, The Right of the People. What America needs, the Baltimore-based Nigerian-born Nwanevu argues, is a radical reinvention of its political system. Nwanevu dismantles liberal pieties about traditional American institutions, arguing that the founders deliberately created an anti-democratic republic designed to prevent majority rule. While conservatives celebrate this fact, progressives remain trapped defending a dysfunctional system that structurally disadvantages them. From the anti-majoritarian Electoral College to the archaic Senate's rural bias, America's "democratic" institutions consistently thwart popular will. To realize real 21st century democracy, he argues, requires extending direct democratic power into both the workplace and the economy. When Amazon workers can vote on American foreign policy but have zero say in their company's decisions, something is fundam