US and British democracy certainly aren't the best implementations around. If you wanted to divide and rule you couldn't come up with a better voting system for that than first-past-the-post.
without the sarcasm people not voting is a huge issue. voter suppression is a central tactic for conservatives. Openly their cult leader recognizes "if everyone voted we'd never have another republican elected president"
> The United States is not, nor is it intended to be, a democracy.
It is more nuanced than that. Technically, the constitution establishes a federal democratic republic form of government:
- federal: union of 50 states
- republic: ultimate power held by the people and their elected representatives AND has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch
- democratic: governance by officials elected by voting of the population
Representation in a republic may or may not be freely elected by the general citizenry. In our case, representation is via electing representatives of the people, i.e. democratic.
I am not yet sure why there are these soundbites of "democracy" vs "republic", since we are both.
One interesting feature of our setup is while we are a democracy, we also have inalienable rights that the majority cannot vote away.
My perspective is that emphasizing that the US is a "republic" and not a "democracy" is not just to be pedantic (certainly they enjoy being pedantic) but to underline that the US system is not set up to be a majority rule. All the wolves can't vote to eat the sheep for dinner type of thing.
Personally, I get suspicious when elected leaders start talking about the powers they need to fight the "threats to our democracy".
No. There’s a term for what you’re describing. It’s called, “liberal democracy.”
The whole “We’re a republic not a democracy,” lie isn’t about that at all. It dates to only WWII. Specifically, it was coined by America First’s Boake Carter as quip in response to Roosevelt’s talk about “the defense of democracies” and “the arsenal of democracy” while arguing that it was perfectly fine for the nazis to run wild in Europe. This phrase continued on with John Birch Society, where it morphed into its sophomoric partisan quip and excuse for unpopular minority rule it is today.
When anyone utters this phrase today, it’s a tell that they literally have no idea what any of the words they say actually mean.
> When anyone utters this phrase today, it’s a tell that they literally have no idea what any of the words they say actually mean.
I'd argue it's a tell that they don't understand the history of the term or the perception of it held by those who disagree with them.
For most people who say it, I believe "we're a republic, not a democracy" means "we're not majority rule, there are structures in place to protect the interests of the minority". This is why they don't trot out the phrase every time the word "democracy" is used. It's a rebuttal to specific instances where people invoke "democracy" to mean "most people I know disagree with you, so your opinion doesn't matter".
Maybe I'm projecting my own views here, but I generally agree with what I believe people are trying to convey when they use the phrase. I don't use it myself, because I know it's not an effective way to communicate my position - not because it's technically not a true statement.
For what it's worth, there's also more nuance to the word "democracy" than you seem to be presenting here. At the time of the founding, it basically meant "rule by popular vote", and was pretty much a synonym for "mob rule". A large part of the US system was explicitly designed to work around the shortcomings of direct democracy.
> For what it's worth, there's also more nuance to the word "democracy" than you seem to be presenting here. At the time of the founding, it basically meant "rule by popular vote", and was pretty much a synonym for "mob rule". A large part of the US system was explicitly designed to work around the shortcomings of direct democracy.
But even this is a misunderstanding of the terms as even (mis)understood in 18th century. Representative (i.e. indirect) democracy doesn't inherently provide any defense of the minority. It's literally just a scaling solution. Nor does the constitution as drafted provide any protections to a minority. In fact, this lack of protections was one of the biggest arguments against ratification, and directly resulted in the Bill of Rights to address some of these issues. Even judicial review of unconstitutional laws didn't exist until 1803, and arguably is extra textual.
What's left is split a legislative and executive, a legislature that is a poor copy of the House of Lords and the House of Commons, and an idiosyncratic points system that 248 years later has not only yielded three unpopular presidents, but elevates whims of a few voters in depopulated states. None of that protects a minority from an abusive majority, nor does it make an affirmative case about why the majority rule should not apply. Far from protecting the minority, electoral college actually enables minority rule. The same can be demonstrated with gerrymandering and legislative seats. A real concern for minority representation balanced with majority rule would address these obvious failures, but it doesn't.
Even the Wish.com House of Lords is joke as originally conceived, since it empowered state legislatures rather than the people of the state. It's a very concept that is an opposition to the very idea of a common nation, but not alien to the idea of a confederation. Now this may have made sense in a 18th century drawing room, but hasn't made sense over 160 years. They thought they were making a European Union, but that's not what developed.
The American constitution may have been great 250 years ago, but it's not by any modern standard today.
> I am not yet sure why there are these soundbites of "democracy" vs "republic", since we are both.
Probably as some weird way to further the divide between left and right. It is really popular to demonize the other side because it's a very effective way to get people riled up enough to vote.
> The United States is not, nor is it intended to be, a democracy.
Even if that were true, it's not really up to the people who intended it to be something else 200 years ago. It's now on us to figure out what kind of nation we want to be.
Many people suggest ranked choice, but it has the significant problem that you might have little idea who won or who is leading until the very last vote is in. One vote in a close race could kick off a chain of events that changes everything. And for a Federal election, a stupid and stubborn state (like the one I'm living in) could stall and delay submitting their results for weeks.
Approval voting doesn't have this problem. When there's a clear winner, it's obvious and you can get back to business.
TBH, "counting votes" for weeks is an issue exclusive to banana republics.
There are plenty of functional democracies like Germany, in which the votes are counted by the end of the day and the results dont change by several percentage points during the next few weeks after the election.
Fair enough, but the last US presidential election had this banana nonsense going on with various recounts lasting for weeks. Maybe you can fix all the states in the entire country while you rework the election system, but since ranked choice and approval voting both solve the two party problem, I don't know why you'd risk the down side for ranked choice.
As a born-and-raised US citizen who went through US schooling and therefore got a load of political science, no.
The US is a republic. You could call it a form of democracy, but you would first call it a republic before a democracy. Representativity is what makes it NOT a democracy.
James Madison, a US founding father, felt that (direct) democracy led to mob rule and did not think that people directly voting on issues was a good idea. You can read his opinion from 1788 in the Federalist Papers, #55: https://guides.loc.gov/federalist-papers/text-51-60#s-lg-box...
"Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob." - Alexander Hamilton or James Madison
The world of political science is massive. There is no "best" system because once you read through this entire body of study, you realize it consists of compromises. People have been trying to figure this out for a very long time.
Voting behavior can be easily hacked as one can see in world elections. Its not for nothing you have analyst, advisors or other sort of experts in the field of electioneering.
I'm sure it's deep staters down voting me. That's fine. Oh look, even the Indian Supreme court state election machines can be manipulated by partisan humans. Go figure.
Not that I disagree, but what I believe makes Switzerland a functioning democracy is that people feel represented. Go complain about the result of a vote in Switzerland and people will say "did you vote?" instead of following you to invade the Capitol. If you did vote, then people will say "well, you're in the minority then".
The mere fact that most people feel that way shows, to me, that the system works. Compare that to e.g. France where Macron got less than 20% in the first round. It means that 80% of the votes were not for him, and of the 20% remaining, a lot did not want him but just thought he was the best chance against the far-right candidate. Right when Macron was re-elected, you could say that more than 80% of the people who voted did not want him. That's a problem IMO.
Not sure what you mean. The people in Switzerland votes for a ton of stuff (not just for a president every 4 years). If you manage to always be on the minority, then probably you are doing it on purpose. The norm is that people are sometimes in the minority, sometimes in the majority. That's called consensus, that's what makes for a good democracy IMO.
The opposite (again IMO) is a system where the people votes for a president every 4 years, and invades the Capitol when they lose. BTW Switzerland does not have a president, but instead a group of 7 representing the biggest parties in the country. So there is consensus even at the highest level.
And the proliferation of ballot questions in US states has been a rather mixed bag. And in many locales in the US, there are direct votes on many local matters.
Now, you might find even that a bit overbearing, but I believe the right of a community to influence the architecture of their local town shouldn't be seen as a bad thing. The feeling was that the few minarets that already existed were incongruent enough, that they didn't want a carte-blanche on more sprouting up, which I think planning permission had already been applied for.
Minarets. Another referendum - in fact the first one ever to be accepted since the reconstitution of Switzerland as a federal state post-Napoleon - banned kosher/halal slaughtering of animals (at the time it was directed against Jews, not Muslims). The ban stands to this day.
I don't always know what "politically incorrect" is being used as a euphemism for but banning mosques seems straightforwardly bad to me idk I guess I'm just a woke dumbass hey.
As said above, it was not banning mosques, but minarets specifically. There were only 4 minarets in Switzerland at the time, and no plan to build any more. You could try to build a minaret in Switzerland, get the permit refused, appeal, and try to go up to a court high enough to make that law illegal. But it seems like nobody cared.
It was more political theater at the time. Not that it was a good vote, but I wouldn't say that the Swiss democracy doesn't work based on that. Switzerland is an example of consensus, and a functional democracy.
Not that you're a woke dumbass, just probably not a true believer in democracy. The thing described above I also dislike, but I recognize I'm not a resident or voter there and I shouldn't get a say in their lives
Well, I would have said that the base criteria for a democracy is that the government is an extension of the will of the people (hence the name). But we can agree that Power separation and Representativity are reasonable proxies. But the US isn't well set up for representativity at all. Without going into the finer issues like gerrymandering or the more controversial things like the electoral college, the core issue is that a first-past-the-post system means there can only be two meaningful parties. So you can only really have two sides, when real issues often are far more nuanced than that.
huh...I always thought of the US as a republic with some democratic features. I mean that's why we have things like the electoral college. Your voice influences but doesn't not actually drive.
Too many people think they have to run for congress or president instead of thinking more locally. Jesse Ventura is a great example of what the founders envisioned as encouraging people to get involved in politics. He was unhappy with the local city government. He ran for mayor and won and spent four years in charge. Went back to his private sector life and then five years after leaving office, ran for governor and won.
I've had friends get involved in their local politics and have been effective. My buddy was a professional skateboarder and run twice for a local office and he barely lost both times and has vowed to stay involved in his cities politics.
You're seeing more and more people getting involved at the national level who said they never had any inkling of getting involved in politics but have thrown their hats in the ring.
There was a reason the founders made the barrier extremely low to get involved in politics, either locally or nationally. They wanted people to have a say in how their governments are run and to make it simple for them to be the change they want to see.
Jesse had been out of wrestling for years before running for mayor of Brooklyn Park. You have to remember this was back in the late 80,s early 90's when there wasn't any internet or social media. I remember reading an article about him resolving some issue the voters brought to him thinking, "I had no idea the guy was still living in the state, let alone running a city as their mayor."
I will give you he did use his radio show to air his grievances and tell stories about his wrestling years and being a frogman (the precursors to the SEALs) so that did bring him back into the public spotlight. He ironically had always dabbled in politics, and even appeared on Howard Stern saying he was going to run for president with gulp Donald Trump who made a guest appearance with him talking about it when he was governor.
So you're right, by the time he ran for governor, he was back to being very well known and leveraged that to a degree where he had to give up his radio show in order to run for governor.
I'm sure that makes the medicine go down easier, but we're not powerless at all. We choose to have no say. We choose not to run our own campaigns and get grassroots approval. Less than half of us vote. The rest accept the status quo, despite the fact that they don't have to. We give away our power.
All of the methods by which a dark horse can run and win are there. The state will not remove your votes or intimidate voters not to vote for you. You will not be poisoned by radioactive toxins to prevent you from running. You will not be kidnapped, or your family threatened, or a bomb set off in polling locations. This isn't in any way like so many other actually repressive regimes. All you have to do is go and run.
We have more power in this society than anyone in any other. So why do we claim we're powerless? Because it makes us feel better that we're so lazy. I could run for office, but that might restrict my time watching The Office. Better to just say that running is pointless, so I don't have to make the change I want to see.
And even if you don't want to run, you can vote for independents, you can complain to your representatives, you can organize your friends and neighbors to petition local government for local reforms and participate in larger state and federal efforts. Individually we may be a drop in the bucket, but collectively we are a wave. You can't say that isn't powerful.
I vouched for this comment to be non-dead. I'm not a US citizen, but I can see why this comment would be contentious for US citizens. I also think it's a valid point, and doesn't cross any HN guidelines (more than other comments that exist in this thread). I'd like to give it another chance and see how it goes.
People who downvoted or flagged the above post are themselves examples of what’s killing HN. Bunch of snowflakes who don’t want to hear the truth: Political engagement works and matters even at the small scale - we are just lazy as hell.
Look to how unpopular CSPAN is. Everyone says they want the “truth” of politics. The truth is on CSPAN, and no one watches it.
We do have some power, but the system is absolutely intended to suppress the power of the masses. The senate as an institution, the cap on the number of reps in the house, the electoral college, representative rather than parliamentary legislature elections, dark money/super PACs/Citizen's United (and other things that look even closer to outright bribery) and first-past-the-post are ALL anti-democractic institutions intended to preserve the status quo for the already wealthy and powerful.
As for having more power than any other society? Delusional. There are far more democractic electoral systems.
> but the system is absolutely intended to suppress
This seems asinine. I am not psychic, I can't always deduce intentions, but sometimes I can see the lack of intent. Things evolve, they develop, and though there might be many factions hoping to steer things in directions they want it to go, the net effect of many factions doing this is our ship just swirling around randomly in the ocean.
When you talk about "intent", it's just rabblerousing. You hope to rile people up, so they'll do what you prefer they would do. It's unnecessary to talk about intent. Whether the system was intended to suppress the power of the masses, or whether the system randomly and quite accidentally developed to do that is moot if it suppresses the masses. The only thing reasonable people should be discussing is:
1. Does this system suppress the power of the masses?
2. Should that change? It's not all that clear that the masses should have power. We've seen what mobs and riots are like, and most of you are ill-informed, opinionated, and susceptible to the effects of rabble-rousing.
As for answers, I think yes, it does suppress power of the masses. I would be skeptical the intelligence of someone who suggested otherwise. And on the second, I'm uncertain... there are days where it seems like only a lunatic would want the masses to have power. But, if they don't have it, others do, and whoever they happen to be, I've not seen many outcomes I've liked.
> the cap on the number of reps in the house
Haha. Do you want that to change? I stumbled upon a weird political science hack a few years back, and I'm convinced that as few as a dozen people (nobodies, even) might change that by the time the next census rolls around. Low effort, you might have to allocate 15 minutes to go talk to a state rep/senator (plus a few hours to prepare... rehearsal, haircut, getting your nice clothes dry-cleaned). It'd bump the number up to something like 5800+ reps in Congress.
The other stuff's all dead in the water. But I know how to ruin the rep cap.
It's more than the ability to put your name on a ballot, between the media control the main parties have, their purposeful entrenchment and anticompetitive setup, and the necessary financial burden; your biggest problem is that simply nobody will know who you are.
My state passed a democratic ballot measure to set up a non-partisan redistricting committee. When it came time to instate new district maps, our state Senate pretended to consider the committee's maps, and voted for their own maps; despite the vocal outage of nearly every citizen who shared a comment on the situation.
I can't coordinate with my "community", when my senators have declared it to include downtown SLC, Tooele, Beaver, Cedar City, St. George, etc. To contrast, Utah County (the most consistently Conservative area in the state) basically gets its own district.
Yes, the US gives all the rights you list to its citizens. But with representation wffectively degenerated into a two-party system by the quirks of the eletion systems, any independent candidates must gather massive support to have a chance. It is more likely that an independent candidate will end up supporting their worst opposition because winner takes all heavily punishes splinter factions by completely discarding their votes.
This is the reason why Kennedy's efforts to appear on the ballots can ultimately hand Trump the presidential election by splitting the Biden canp.P
The US has culturally accepted this flawed system. The UK has a multiparty parliament despite first past the post. This comes at the price of up to more than 60% of the votes getting effectively discarded.
I believe firmly that the US would be served better today if it transitioned to a proportional voting system. But the constitution is treated with too much deference to expect meaningful updates to get it in line with 21st century realities.
If I’m interpreting your joke/comment correctly, if you object to the complete corruption of the US political process by special interests you must be a Russian propagandist, is that correct? I don’t want to put words in your mouth.
For whatever reason there’s a fringe, but somewhat common, tendency in the U.S. to insist that “democracy” means “direct democracy” and that “republic” means what everyone else calls “representative democracy”. This is then used to derail people complaining about the U.S. being undemocratic, as you can see here.
I have no idea where this meme comes from, because for 99% of people “republic” just means not governed by a monarch or traditional aristocracy and is orthogonal to democracy. For example, Canada is democratic but not a republic, North Korea is a republic but not democratic, Saudi Arabia is neither, and France is both.
Honestly, if you look up the definition of republic and democracy, if you blink, you’ll miss differences, and even then, the USA is best described as a democratic republic.
Obviously, the last several years has taught us why the right wing is so intent on getting rid of the word “democracy” in describing the USA, and they fundamentally do not believe in the right to vote.
How about a pm last less than 60 days? Any totalitarian country like that. We are talking about a country my exam question is “all Brits are slaves, discuss”. Still.
Anyway may be you are the bots we talked about. And if not even more sad.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...