How to Stop the Minority-Rule Doom Loop The next two years might be America’s last chance to protect the basic democratic principle of majority rule. April 12, 2021 Dan Calderwood / Unsplash / The Atlantic President Joe Biden came into office facing four “converging crises”: COVID-19, climate change, racial justice, and the economy. But after a few weeks of fast action on a pandemic relief plan, a fifth crisis will determine the fate of the rest of his administration, and perhaps that of American democracy itself: the minority-rule doom loop, by which predominantly white conservatives gain more and more power, even as they represent fewer Americans.