John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN INVESTMENTWATCH
"Are We A Republic or A Democracy?"
To my mind, this makes very little sense.
Not only the language of the founding document but the views of most of the Founders make it a republic, which incidentally is pretty well the most vaguely defined political term.
It means little more than the fact that you don't have a king and do have some kind of representatives, however selected. Right into the early 20th century, for example, American Senators were appointed.
Most of the Founders disliked the word "democracy" about as much as J Edgar Hoover disliked the word "communist."
It is true that the population of people who can vote has grown tremendously. It was estimated that about 1% could vote in early Virginia, which happens to be a similar number to those who are members of the Communist Party of China and who get to pick the leader.
But while the number of voters has steadily increased over many, many decades, other developments render their votes less meaningful.
The duopoly party system plus the gigantic role of money in America really does mean that no matter which candidate is elected, the American establishment wins. And the role of money has become central. It has been declared “free speech” by the Supreme Court. In American national politics, you can't even play at the table without the kind of huge stakes Democrats and Republicans have in their pockets.
Winning an election means very little in the way of change. It does not change the role of big money, does not change the role of powerful lobbies, the role of the Pentagon, the role of the CIA - in short, America's plutocratic government and its empire and its powerful organizations of support do not change no matter who wins.
In that important sense, American national elections aren’t all that different than the elections of the old Soviet Union. They just spend immensely more money and make a lot of noise in the press, and people think something is happening.
Mainly what changes is just some rhetoric around social issues, and I stress “rhetoric” because even change on the domestic social front is mostly not consequential. There simply is no room for it either in a budget committing so much to empire and war or in the attentions of career-oriented politicians who know where power really lies.
That ain't democracy, for sure.
