American Democracy

"What we think we have is not necessarily what we practice"

The Greeks have been credited with creating Democracy.

Whether that's true, the question now is "What kind of political system are we really practicing, and how is each major party using that system to their advantage?" American conservatives don't seem to believe that decisions by the majority are binding if they disagree with the decision of that majority. How will democracy work under these conditions?

Donald Trump said, "I could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose any votes." And many believe he was right about that. The reason he could possible do this is because Trump supporters don't back him because he's a good guy, a smart guy, a truthful guy, or even a rich guy. They're behind him because he's NOT a traditionalist, and they believe that he will keep them at the top of the food chain within their own country and throughout the world. These people aren't concerned about democracy; they want superiority and supremacy.

The key principles of conservatism are so very well suited for the racist element within our society that, for the most part, conservatives are labeled racist, especially by African Americans and many Latinos. Republicans have conceded that they cannot outvote Democrats, so they've decided to try and outsmart them. They've decided to gerrymander congressional districts and state legislative districts. They've packed majority-minority districts and other Democratic districts that they consider unwinnable, and they've complicated and impeded the voting process for those who historically vote against them. They pass legislation that they say is tough on crime but ends up just being tough on people of color. Street drug use was attacked with high priority, while corporate white drug users were given a pass. When the crack cocaine epidemic was ransacking the black community, the answer was "aggressive arrest, minimum sentencing, and three strikes and you're out." When heroin, meth, powered cocaine, and prescription drugs started sending too many white kids to the emergency room with overdoses, the answer was "Let's get them the medical and mental health help they need."

The black community had been devastated by punishment and criminal records resulting from drug use. Blacks were sent to long jail sentences, charged with felonies, and removed from the voting roles, while whites were given passes. Other voter-suppression methods included requiring voter's ID, moving precincts, eliminating early voting, eliminating same-day registration, and ratcheting up voter intimidation, such as falsely communicating to voters of color that they could be arrested at the voting polls if they were found to have just one unpaid parking ticket. They also hired private groups to comb the voter files to remove (purge) people from the rolls who didn't meet the prerequisites to remain on the rolls. Quite often, people of color (blacks and Hispanics) were removed from the rolls that should not have been removed. Conservatives were counting on these tactics to shore up their chances of winning in the November general election, and it did just that in 2016.

The working definition of democracy is "a system of government managed by the whole population, or all of the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives." Using this as a working definition, let's see how the system currently practiced by the United States of America fits and if there are some other ancillary definitions and identifiers that may be a better description of our political system than the word "democracy." First of all, the USA has never practiced pure democracy, a form of democracy wherein there are no eligibility criterion except that of being a member of the group to be governed, and everyone has a vote but only one vote. "Democracy is the worst form of government if you believe in racial privilege and racial supremacy."

From its beginning, the USA has had considerable eligibility conditions that authorized electoral participation. Initially, only white male property owners could vote. It seemed as if America wanted to be recognized as a democracy but craved and preferred the oligarchy that existed in Europe. In America, conservatives have always been on the side that denied voting rights. They were against the expansion of voting privileges to poor whites, men of color, women, and youth under twenty-one years old. And when laws were changed to recognize the voting rights of these various groups (Fifteenth, Nineteenth, and Twenty-Sixth Amendments), conservatives began voter-suppression campaigns that were second to none. And before voter suppression, there was voter intimidation. Voter intimidation could, and often did, mean violence and sometimes murder. Some of the more notorious suppressions and intimidations were poll taxes, where selected voters (usually black voters) were assessed a tax they normally couldn't pay to qualify to vote. The Twenty-Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution outlawed poll taxes, but ingenious conservatives replaced poll taxes with other economic measures in their attempt to keep black people from voting. Requiring a photo ID in many cases could result in a cost. Relocating voting precincts could result in a cost. Disallowing early voting was a very useful tool for conservatives. When we disallow early voting, we mandate that all voting is done on the same day, making it harder for workers (especially low-wage workers) to work a full day, negotiate city traffic, and get to the polls before they closed. Taking the day off to vote was a cost that low-wage workers could not afford.

Literacy tests were administered throughout the South. Oftentimes, they were administered by individuals who could barely read themselves. These tests were administered to black would-be voters primarily, and the results were always secret and uncontestable. After the administration of the test, black college graduates, black military officers, and black businessmen were told that they were ineligible to vote because they had not passed the literacy test. Poor, uneducated whites were not required to take the literacy test, or if they did, they passed at almost a hundred percent pass rate. In the 1980s in North Carolina, Republican U.S. senator Jesse Helms's campaign sent a letter to black voters in Durham, North Carolina,...