Saving Democracy?

You're too late. But you already knew that.

There is a lot of talk about “saving Democracy” nowadays. President’s Biden’s Campaign Manager says, “We are running our campaign like the fate of our democracy depends on it, because it does.” Rachel Maddow recently claimed that if Trump wins in 2024, “that will be the end of politics.” Robert Reich writes “10 New Year Resolutions for Saving American Democracy” in the Guardian that step 1 is, of course, “Become a political activist to ensure Trump is not elected.” I’m willing to bet you the White House Communications office regularly provides language to any Democrat who will repeat it that drops “Saving Democracy,” into each speech, remark or prepared statement. There must also be polling for the Biden Campaign that “Saving Democracy,” is the key concept that, if drilled well enough into the head of independent voters, will lead to victory in November. One would be drunk in an hour while watching MSNBC if one took a drink each time the phrase were mentioned.

But as any student of US Government 101 knows the Constitution of the United States did not create a democracy per se, but a representative Republic with limited democracy. In fact, the only aspect of our system that is truly and strictly democratic (understanding that the Greek roots of the word as demos, meaning common people, and kratos meaning rule - the rule of the common people) are the elections in which we participate once every two years for Congress and once every four for the President. Elections, in the US Republic, are the only power granted directly to the people in terms of governance - we elect our leaders. Once elected, we rely on those leaders to work in the people’s interest, which they divine through cruder methods - meeting with key constituents, town halls, discourse through traditional and social media, direct polling and other trappings of our modern society.

And so, if our system of government is democratic at all, it relies on a robust election process that challenges our leaders to compete and win against all comers to secure victory. A grand review of the state of the Union, a candidate’s record in resolving issues of that state, and each candidate’s plan going forward is the ideal scenario in which the common people - the demos - choose its leaders.

But that is not what we have. The primary process in general, and specifically in 2024 is anything but democratic. In fact, only voters in one party in three or four states will cast a meaningful vote in the entire primary process - Republicans in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and perhaps South Carolina. The common people be damned.

For the Democrats, their authoritarian rule over the primary process has been well documented, at least since 2016. Bernie Sanders was locked out of his likely primary victory by the party bosses at the DNC. The Democratic Party went so far as to tell every one that they are under no obligation to follow a democratic process to nominate their candidate. When some Bernie Sanders supporters sued the DNC for unfair practices and breaking their own rules that state the DNC should not favor one candidate over another, the DNC responded that, “the party has every right to favor one candidate or another, despite their party rules that state otherwise because, after all, they are a private corporation and they can change their rules if they want.” The party chose Hillary Clinton over the common people’s preferred candidate and Democrats every where just accepted this authoritarian crackdown.

More recently the DNC, when faced with then-declared challengers to Biden’s reelection RFK, Jr. and Marianne Williamson, declared in April 2023 that there would be no debates sponsored by the party. Next, President Biden himself proposed and the DNC agreed to disenfranchise Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada Democratic voters by changing the schedule and making South Carolina the first Democratic primary contest. Iowa Democrats did not caucus and have a mail-in ballot process that won’t be counted until they matter little. New Hampshire held its primary without Biden’s name on the ballot and their delegates will not be accepted to the DNC convention - New Hampshire voters voted for no reason. In Nevada, Democrats will vote before South Carolina but the results will be held from the public until well after South Carolina’s vote. Why wouldn’t South Carolinians want to know how Biden did in Nevada before voting?

Simple. Because Joe Biden did poorly in Iowa, he did poorly in Nevada, and he did poorly in New Hampshire in 2020. But he won his first victory in South Carolina. It is a clear strategy to lock out challenges and secure the nomination by changing the game mid-cycle to give every advantage to President Biden’s campaign. Sound very democratic to you?

On the Republican side, 230,000 total votes for Donald Trump in 2 states have secured the victory for all intents and purposes. President Trump has won 32 of the 2,368 total available delegates, or 1.4% of the total. The race basically ended within a week of the first vote in Iowa. If you check the primary calendar however, you will see that the primary season is intended to last through June - a five month process where voters from all 50 states and the territories make their preference known.

Of course, Nikki Haley hasn’t quit the race yet, but she will likely lose in her home state (if she stays in the race until then) with Trump leading in the polls there by 40 points. Ron DeSantis - the next most viable candidate after Trump - was forced to quit the race after one vote, reportedly because his campaign ran out of money and could not get additional big money donor support. It seems every Republican in Congress endorsed the former President and asked for the electorate to move on just before and just after the Iowa results. The race was over before it started.

So we return to the problem: our system, rigged by the two all-too-powerful national parties, has chosen their nominees for President with only votes by Republicans in just two states. The net effect, which is plain as day to anyone paying attention, is that the voters had no say in this process - the nominees were chosen in a back room authoritarian process by the elite donor class, big media and the political parties themselves. The demos - the common people - had no say. Donors, big media and the parties don’t complain because of course they want this power to select the candidates themselves. And so these few rule, the demos be damned.

We live in what is functionally an oligarchy, whereby a select few with the power and money to do so pick our candidates and ensure the status quo.

Saving democracy? You’re too late. But you already knew that.