[today20201014]

The republic-vs-democracy debate distracts from what we should be debating: is our system of representation fair?

Obviously we are a "democracy" (we vote) and a "republic" (for most of history and the rest of the world, this means we don't have a monarch. The US is the exception, where we take it to mean that we have a representative democracy a la Fed. #10.)

Let's say the popular vote (i.e. the mad crowd) votes 45% party X and 55% party Y, but party X get 55% of the representative seats and party Y gets 45%. Why is this fair? Why shouldn't party Y get more seats? Why can't the members of party Y act as a "damping factor" (instead of a "counterweight") to the demands of their own voters?