Demand Real Democracy !
Trump is blasted by liberals for questioning the legitimacy of the election system — -But is it Legitimate? Is the U.S. a democracy?
Donald Trump made a ludicrous attempt to overturn the 2020 Presidential Election. He tried to throw out millions of votes in key states, claiming mail ballot “ dumps” were fraudulent.
This anti-democratic effort was denounced by Democrats and media pundits on a couple grounds — It denied democracy and it threatened to de-legitimize the political system. The former is a real problem for workers. We do need our democratic rights ! The later is only a problem for the ruling class. The Democrats are just attempting to maintain faith in a fundamentally undemocratic system.
The real concern of ruling class representatives and media talking heads is legitimacy. In order for people to freely obey the government, they must agree that it represents them. If legitimacy of the system is popularly threatened , it makes it harder for rulers to impose their will. Politicians care less about whether the election was free and fair and more about whether people believe it was free and fair
This is shown by the number of times politicians and news reporters attacked Trump for causing most of his voters to doubt the system.
It is also shown by the media and ruling class reaction to previous elections. In both 2016 and 2000, the presidential candidate with fewer votes was legally anointed president. Al Gore had over a half million votes more than George W. Bush in 2000. Hillary Clinton had almost 3 million more votes than Donald Trump in 2016.
How did this happen? The Electoral College actually elects the president. Each state gets the same number of votes for president as it has in the House of Representatives and Senate. The Senate is fundamentally undemocratic , awarding votes to territory and not population. New Hampshire, Wyoming and Montana get as many Senate votes as California and New York.
So how did the Democratic politicians respond to the undemocratic result in 2000 and 2016? They raised not a peep! As soon as the U.S. Supreme Court gave Florida’s electoral vote to Bush, Gore gave up. Hillary Clinton conceded the election to Trump the day after the election — even though she knew she had gotten more popular votes than Trump.
All the politicians, Democratic and Republican alike justified Clinton’s and Gore’s concession. They urged everyone to accept the result that they knew was a travesty of democracy. They praised Gore and Clinton for being good citizens for conceding. To Gore, Clinton and their top supporters, maintenance of the system which serves their interests was more important than following the will of the voters.
Trump has gone off script. He is so egotistical and narcissistic that he puts his view of his own interests about the interests of the ruling class as a whole. The vast majority of the ruling class is united in opposing Trump’s plan to stay in power. This is shown by the near unanimous court decisions and statements by big business groups .
Obviously, anyone concerned about democratic rights should oppose Trump’s coup attempt . Since the voters elected Biden , he should be the next president. But no one should think that Biden’s accession somehow shows the U.S. is a real democracy. No one should support the ruling class’s plan to shore up support for legitimacy of the system. On the contrary ! — -We should expose and de-legitimize the system!
“Democracy” under capitalism is always mostly capitalist with only the bare brush of democracy. In all capitalist societies, the golden rule applies: Those with the gold make the rules! The economically dominant class becomes the political ruling class. The ruling class uses its power to keep the government in line with capitalist interests — -by bribery, lobbying, campaign contributions etc. Its main power is that the government needs a strong economy to maintain its power. The government must go along with the needs of the capitalist class to keep the economy profitable. It only grants concessions to the working class when forced to by mass movements. The state apparatus, especially the military, courts and bureaucracy are shaped by capitalism and committed to its needs.
Even when citizens get to vote on initiatives, their choices are limited. Often they can vote to raise their taxes and cut already low living standards or cut social services. They have no democratic control of the economy, so cannot vote where to allocate the vast majority of resources which are in private hands. There is certainly no democracy at work!
This is true of all capitalist economies. Capitalism dominates every country, and therefore every government. However , the U.S. has key unique structural features that reinforce minority rule and suppression of democratic rights.
The vaunted separation of powers and checks and balances get in the way of formation of popular will. Judicial review and the Presidential Veto can prevent legislative majorities from passing laws. The Senate and Electoral College are important obstacles to democracy. Constitutional amendments are extremely difficult to enact .
Several restrictions on voting rights are important. Non-citizens , most felons and prisoners cannot vote. This excludes 20 million people or more. Gerrymandering devalues the votes of millions more. ( for example in many years Democrats win more overall votes than Republicans in House and Senate races but the Republicans win the most seats). Importantly, the legacy of racist vote suppression continues. This suppression includes voter ID laws, removal of voting places from BIPOC areas etc.
Finally, the winner take all party system is rigged against challenges to capitalist interests. Both of the major parties are run by and for big business and deserve no support from workers. Internally they are structured to resist challenges from the left, as the Bernie Sanders effort within the Democratic Party showed. State election laws are biased against potential new parties.
Altogether, this means that democracy under U.S. capitalism is extremely limited. A recent Princeton study showed reported that the U.S. is actually closer to an oligarchy than a democracy.
https://truthinmedia.com/princeton-study-declares-u-s-government-an-oligarchy/
We should defend what democratic rights we have but should have no illusions that we live in a substantial democracy.
While opposing Trump’s further attack on democracy, we should also oppose the Democratic Party’s attempt to shore up the legitimacy of an undemocratic system. If we want real democracy, we will need to overthrow the capitalist system which is based on minority control of the economy and the politics. We need a system based on human needs not profit, public ownership and democratic control of the economy, socialism.
We can’t carry out a successful socialist revolution to put the majority in power while the majority still sees the current system as legitimate.
Oppose the coup! But demand real democracy !
