this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2024
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US Authoritarianism
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I do not think that the US is a democracy. The electoral college is not in any way democratic.
It is an indirect democracy, rather than a direct one. Its less democratic, but not completely undemocratic.
That being said, I do think the system is broken in another fundamental way.
It's completely undemocratic. Public opinion has no influence on policy whatsoever. Most Americans are in favour of Medicare for all, of legal abortions, of rising taxes on corporations and the most rich people, and much much more. But study after study shows that public opinion has no influence on policy, as in, they're not even correlated.
I feel like that's less of a problem with the way a representative democracy works, but rather with corruption and thus capitalism
Yeah, I wasn't referring to the concept of representative democracy itself, I was referring to the particular case of the US (though I'd extrapolate it to most liberal democracies in western countries)
Ahem. Indirect democracy AKA representative democracy AKA republic is political system, where laws are voted by representatives who are elected by citizens. USA is indirect indirectracy. Or idiocracy. Like Putin's Russia, but with bells and whistles.
Direct democracy is rare beast. In it laws are directly voted by citizens on referendums.
FPTP?
Gerrymandering, vote caging, mass disenfranchisement, consolidated power in appointed positions...
A very curious was to run a republic.