According to the United States official immigration test for naturalized citizens: The United States is a representative democracy. This means that our government is elected by citizens. Here, citizens vote for their government officials. These officials represent the citizens' ideas and concerns in government.
We Americans like to hold ourselves up as examples for the world when it comes to democratic government and liberty. But do we live up to this standard ourselves?
Long before the 45th president attempted to subvert the will of the people in the 2020 elections, the U.S. had many systematic reasons why our public representatives were failing to uphold the ideals of the electorate.
Here is a rundown of ten reasons why we fail to reach the objective of true democracy:
The Electoral College. It is an imperfect, if not completely broken system, when voters in a handful of specific states wield all the power on who will be elected president. The problem is a change in the Constitution to have a straight popular electoral vote requires overwhelming majority support across the Senate and state legislatures. However, when a change in the Constitution means that one party’s gain results in the competing party’s loss of power, it is, and will forever be, in the interest of one side to obstruct any change. It seems like virtually a moot point to even think about the system changing in our lifetime.
Gerrymandering and carpetbagging. Both major parties can be implicated in redrawing Congressional districts in order to secure elections for their party (a practice known as “gerrymandering”). This means that the only meaningful elections in the vast majority of American Congressional districts are contested only in their party’s primary. This results in the more extreme wings of each party gaining control as the most partisan voters are most likely to show up and vote in the primaries. While the country itself is roughly evenly divided between “right” and “left,” fewer than ten percent of all 435 congressional districts are ever competitive in any given year. Meanwhile, the practice of “carpetbagging” allows politicians to run for office who do not even come from that particular district. Politicians are opportunistic and so are their parties. If the purpose of members of the House of Representatives is to represent the interests of their local district, how meaningful can this be if that person does not even reside in the district?
Two US Senators per state. Rooted in the idea of a (“small r”) republican form of government, the forefathers thought it important to grant each state equal representation in the upper house of Congress. Given the power that each US senator wields in this day and age, one has to wonder how it is fair that the two senators representing fewer than 600,000 people in Wyoming are just as powerful in setting federal laws as two senators who speak for the 39,000,000 who live in California. Yet again, this rule must be changed by Constitutional amendment, and if one side were to gain, the other would lose, and hence, has no incentive to make a change. One also has to ask why state borders are drawn as they are. Perhaps California could split into ten separate states, to at least balance the power and have more representation than it does today.
Disenfranchisement of non-state resident citizens. More than four million Americans live in US territories, including Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia, the US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands. These individuals are bona fide citizens, but their votes in federal elections do not count. They have “delegates” to the House, who can speak, but their votes do not count. They have no Senate representation. They have no say (other than DC) in the presidential electoral college. How do we allow some of our citizens to have such a lack of representation? Is this morally justifiable in any way?
A two-party system with no voice for minority viewpoints. Most democratic countries have more than two political parties of consequence. The American system forces a choice between two parties. Even if 10% of an electorate were to consistently vote for say the Green or Libertarian party, the voice of those parties will never be heard in terms of elected office, because we have an all-or-nothing system of electing members of Congress and other offices. Other countries use a parliamentary system of democracy that allows for minority parties to have a say. The American system simply does not, and this forces anyone who wishes to be elected, to choose one party or the other and more or less conform to that party’s platform. Americans are effectively forced to choose between just two options that do not account for the diversity and shades of gray among philosophical viewpoints.
Lifetime judicial appointments. The judiciary was once thought to be the politically independent branch of government. Sadly, hyper-polarized partisanship as it is, that is not the case today. In truth, it was never really the case. Judicial appointments represent partisan interests as much as elected representatives do, just wrapped in the cloak of being “nonpartisan.” Exacerbating the challenge is the lifetime nature of such appointments. Whoever happens to be in an office such as president or governor, who has the power to appoint judges, can have their partisan influence felt 30, 40, or even more years into the future. All sides now have hopes and prayers for when judges might die since their seat can then be allotted to the side of whomever happens to be in office at that fateful time. It has become a game of Constitutional roulette.
Presidential candidate nominations. Both major parties have aligned on a presidential nominating process that gives the residents of certain states more influence than those who live in other states. If you happen to live in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, or South Carolina, you’re in luck! Your vote matters more than those who reside in other states. Why? A legacy of times gone by when candidates had to canvas for support door-to-door and meet the electorate. Nevermind that each state has its own set of rules regarding who votes (open or closed primaries, i.e. only registered party members vs. inclusion of independents) and how they vote (primary vs. caucus) and how those votes get allocated (proportionally vs. winner-take-all). This legacy continues due to inertia and in spite of the lack of equal representation that this entails. Even after the Iowa Democratic Party botched the vote counting process in the 2020 caucus, this process continues to live on as the powers that be can’t be bothered to rethink the consequences of this process and align with the modern age.
Partisan media bubbles. Compromised democracy is not merely an outcome of highly imperfect Constitutional design. It is also driven by those who influence the electorate to take on beliefs that are rooted in disinformation and hyperpartisanship that has the veneer of “balanced” news. In the push for ratings, media outlets have steered from delivering honest, objective accounts of the day’s news, to a 24-hour cycle of spin that presents the news in a manner that glorifies one side and vilifies the other. This often involves trumping up stories that fit a particular narrative while downplaying or hiding altogether breaking news that conflicts with the prevailing viewpoints of that media outlet’s targeted audience. It is a vicious cycle that has led to a mainstreaming of fringes of party politics.
Social media and foreign meddling. Adding fuel to the partisan media bubble trap are the ways that social media accounts are being concocted by outside influences to amp up the rhetoric and spin false tales. Social media has become a toxic wasteland for vicious commentary, while certain foreign governments and their agents have been systematically working to influence American (and other nations’) political elections through disinformation campaigns that reach vulnerable and unknowing audiences. Ironically, much of this meddling in the democratic process comes from nations that barely even pretend to hold themselves accountable to democratic principles.
Uncontrolled money and spending. The great overarching shadow over free and fair elections is the influence of money. Wealthy and powerful individuals and corporations can get their message across and can do so in ways that are by-and-large unregulated and unaccountable to truth and transparency. The Supreme Court’s judgment in the Citizens United case has upheld this, at a cost to those with fewer financial resources. All of this plays into the hands of incumbent elected officials and those with big pockets who often do not have the interests of the “little guy” at heart.
These ten barriers to true democracy are hardly the end of it. We haven’t even touched on voter suppression and the way in which some states have set up barriers that make it more difficult for targeted groups in an electorate to simply cast a vote in their elections.
So what can be done here? As the political landscape stands today, too many forces are at work to prevent many of these barriers for changing. The political parties are only out to change whatever can provide them with more power and are out to stop anything that could work against them. The only way to proceed is for a broad bipartisan coalition to come together to work from a high level and start organizing a broad swath of reforms that ultimately make the US more democratic, but can be done so in a way that does not obviously favor one side over the other. This is a tall order and may be very wishful thinking, but it is the only way forward and in the long run may be necessary for preserving the republic. For now, we sadly must accept that the current system merely has the pretense of being a democracy. Democracy-ish is more like it.