"No democracy perfectly distills the will of the people. But America is uniquely terrible at achieving democratic outcomes." @ddayen https://prospect.org/politics/2024-01-29-america-is-not-democracy/
Text: Exactly what part of democracy are we trying to save? Is it our democratic legislature, gerrymandered and malapportioned beyond recognition, with supermajority thresholds that deny rule even by that corrupted majority? Is it our democratic presidency, which Trump legally took over after losing the popular vote in 2016, and George W. Bush in the same fashion 16 years earlier? Is it our democratic judiciary, morphed into a super-legislature and habitually twisting the Constitution to advantage those with power, money, and influence? Are we worried about a democracy that can be so easily purchased, where corporate lobbyists either win whatever they want on Capitol Hill, or win by regulatory change or international trade treaty whatever they don’t? Has this government, where the most important modification of our democracy’s original sin, the second-class citizenship of Black people, is now being steadily reversed by state legislatures and the courts, earned our support? Is there despair over losing something that has produced unequal opportunity, unequal justice, and the conversion of economic power into political power? Where can we find this democracy we need to fight to preserve?