The Ghost of John Calhoun

"Republicans today face an increasingly desperate political predicament, similar to the one that Calhoun and his contemporaries faced in the early 1800s. They are a sectional party whose ranks are dwindling, relative to the rest of the country. Since they don’t want to give ground on their political agenda, they’re grasping at levers for thwarting the majority. In Congress, that has meant transforming the filibuster into a routine means of blocking simple majorities from passing laws. (Among those who have observed the parallels to Calhounism are James Fallows.) More recently, in state capitals of conservative states, it has meant taking advantage of lingering majorities there to ram through policy changes, like eliminating income taxes, that will undermine the welfare state for generations.
"But the most pernicious part of this campaign may be the campaign to thwart Democratic voters from exercising their rights to have equal influence in politics—whether by preventing them from going to the polls on election day or, via this latest effort in Virginia and other swing states, to prevent majorities from having the power to determine election outcomes."

Jonathan Cohn in The New Republic discusses how the GOP is trying to undermine to will of the majority.