A republic for Republicans “High-minded claims that we are not a democracy surreptitiously fuse republic with minority rule rather than popular government,” wrote George Thomas in 2020. The Wohlford Professor of American Political Institutions at Claremont McKenna College was discussing how “we’re a republic, not a democracy” has morphed from campus conservative pedantry to a Republican ruling philosophy. “Enabling sustained minority rule at the national level is not a feature of our constitutional design, but a perversion of it,” Thomas argued. “Routine minority rule is neither desirable nor sustainable, and makes it difficult to characterize the country as either a democracy or a republic.” When it comes to perverting constitutional design, Republicans in this century have demonstrated a serious knack for it. Consider Ohio’s special election today drafted to change how Ohio has amended its constitution for over a century. It’s not just sustained minority rule at the national level that should concern Americans. Eugene Robinson writes (Washington Post): State Issue 1, which Ohio voters will decide in a special election Tuesday, looks harmless enough. But don’t be fooled: It is a brazen attempt to keep a majority of Ohioans from enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution. Anyone who believes in reproductive privacy — or in democracy itself — must vote no. Presently, voters can approve a proposed amendment to the Ohio constitution with a simple majority vote. If Issue 1 is approved, future amendments would fail unless they received a 60 percent supermajority. Anyone trying to get a proposed amendment on the ballot would also have to gather…