A Quote for the Fourth of July

Noah Millman, writing in The Week about American politics:

Authority, in any political system, rests on the consent of the governed; democracy just provides the most effective means for the political class to determine whether the governed continue to consent.

"Most effective" and, I'd add, normally least violent means. For example, Britain's political class just learned, via Brexit, they no longer have the governed's consent to remain in the EU. Very effective indeed.