Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point

In The Odyssey, the Greek poet Homer presented Scylla (a six-headed sea monster) and Charybdis (a whirlpool) as mythical sea monsters who sat on opposite sides of the Strait of Messina between present-day Sicily and Calabria. In Greek mythology, sailors regarded these sea monsters as maritime hazards. They were located close enough to each other that it was almost impossible for sailors to fully avoid them. In Homer’s account, Odysseus was told to pass by Scylla because he would lose fewer men compared to passing by Charybdis. Due to these stories and the actual difficulties of navigating this part of the Mediterranean, Scylla and Charybdis are now associated with the proverbial advice “to choose the lesser of two evils.”

Levitsky and Ziblatt use Scylla and Charybdis to symbolize the dangers of the “tyranny of minority” and “tyranny of majority.” The US Founding Fathers were especially concerned about the latter. As such, they put counter-majoritarian institutions in place to limit the power of the majority. While democracies do need checks on majority rule, the authors argue that the Founding Fathers went too far. These institutions have enabled minority rule by the Republican Party. The authors assert, “by steering the republic so sharply away from the Scylla of majority tyranny, America’s founders left it vulnerable to the Charybdis of minority rule” (11).