Elite complaints against democracy mask a wish to seize popular decision power

Evidence

Thus it is not a question of the people who “have the brains” feeling that they are being reduced to the level of the lowest illiterate, but rather one of people who think they are the ones with the brains wanting to take away from the “man in the street” even that tiniest fraction of power of decision over the course of national life which he possesses . — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 791

Categorization

• XREF: Connects forward to Islamophobia readings on how ruling blocs delegitimize democratic participation of racialized/working majorities.