Whether or not the federal government has "too much power," what does it mean to American politics if a majority of Americans think the the U.S. government does have too much power? If this is the belief, surely at some point there will be a tipping point and the government will have to respond to reality. Of course under our system, the voter is said to have the final word. The voters supposedly can vote out those who have attained "too much power." But what if by "too much power" we mean the government has even conquered the democratic process to the point of subverting it and usurping the power of the people? This is, of course, a recurring story throughout history, at least throughout the history of democracies. It is related to the warnings the Founding Fathers issued regarding the difficulty of maintaining democracies once established. Still, there are signs democracy is not yet dead in America. Or if essentially dead, perhaps it is in process of reviving. Or even, perhaps, in process of being truly established for the first time. Let us hope one of these is true.
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