Democracy just means that the power ultimately rests in the hands of the people. The fact that we vote for our representatives, meaning it’s ultimately up to us, makes us a democracy. The electoral system is not contradictory to a democracy.
FPTP voting allows a candidate who is highly unpopular by any measure to win over a more popular candidate. Single-member districts allow a party to win a fraction of seats in a legislature that is vastly greater than the fraction of the population who voted for them. Bullshit like the Electoral College just straight up counts some votes more than others.
That’s just the stuff that’s above board. With gerrymandering, voter suppression, and just plain rigging the vote, anything is possible.
The fact that there are flaws in our democracy does not make it not a democracy.
There are essentially only 4 forms of government, based on the ultimate source of power:
Autocracy - an individual
Oligarchy - a few
Democracy - the people
Anarchy - no one
Even in the case where there are flaws, ultimately the power resides in the people. If we all banded together and voted for someone who would get rid of gerrymandering and the FPTP voting system, and all that BS, we could make it happen. Which means we are still a democracy.
At some point a democracy is so flawed it stops being a democracy in any meaningful sense. The stuff I mentioned exists on a spectrum that includes “democracy” in Russia. They have votes but nobody thinks they have democracy. Hence my original comment.
If you define democracy as a state where people can change things if they all band together, then every country in history has been a democracy because people have always had the theoretical option to band together and overthrow their government by force.
At some point a democracy is so flawed it stops being a democracy in any meaningful sense. The stuff I mentioned exists on a spectrum that includes “democracy” in Russia.
I ultimately agree. It’s not some black or white thing. And Russia is clearly not a democracy, but an autocracy. Some countries have better and stronger democracy than others. The US actually has a pretty strong democracy index, at the high end of “flawed democracy.” We clearly have shit we need to improve, but still a democracy. And the fact that we have an electoral system to elect the POTUS is not one of the reasons ours is flawed.
If you define democracy as a state where people can change things if they all band together, then every country in history has been a democracy because people have always had the theoretical option to band together and overthrow their government by force.
If we are being unnecessarily pedantic, I didn’t say this. I said it’s a government.
The said I mentioned exists on a spectrum that includes “democracy” in Russia. They have votes but nobody thinks they have democracy. Hence my original comment.
Democracy just means that the power ultimately rests in the hands of the people. The fact that we vote for our representatives, meaning it’s ultimately up to us, makes us a democracy. The electoral system is not contradictory to a democracy.
Voting is necessary but not sufficient for a democracy.
Please expand.
FPTP voting allows a candidate who is highly unpopular by any measure to win over a more popular candidate. Single-member districts allow a party to win a fraction of seats in a legislature that is vastly greater than the fraction of the population who voted for them. Bullshit like the Electoral College just straight up counts some votes more than others.
That’s just the stuff that’s above board. With gerrymandering, voter suppression, and just plain rigging the vote, anything is possible.
The fact that there are flaws in our democracy does not make it not a democracy.
There are essentially only 4 forms of government, based on the ultimate source of power:
Even in the case where there are flaws, ultimately the power resides in the people. If we all banded together and voted for someone who would get rid of gerrymandering and the FPTP voting system, and all that BS, we could make it happen. Which means we are still a democracy.
At some point a democracy is so flawed it stops being a democracy in any meaningful sense. The stuff I mentioned exists on a spectrum that includes “democracy” in Russia. They have votes but nobody thinks they have democracy. Hence my original comment.
If you define democracy as a state where people can change things if they all band together, then every country in history has been a democracy because people have always had the theoretical option to band together and overthrow their government by force.
I ultimately agree. It’s not some black or white thing. And Russia is clearly not a democracy, but an autocracy. Some countries have better and stronger democracy than others. The US actually has a pretty strong democracy index, at the high end of “flawed democracy.” We clearly have shit we need to improve, but still a democracy. And the fact that we have an electoral system to elect the POTUS is not one of the reasons ours is flawed.
If we are being unnecessarily pedantic, I didn’t say this. I said it’s a government.
The said I mentioned exists on a spectrum that includes “democracy” in Russia. They have votes but nobody thinks they have democracy. Hence my original comment.