The USA is not a democracy it is a federal republic. Anyone who disagrees needs to recite the US pledge of allegiance, and review the US constitution. China is also a republic. But, neither of the two dominant USA parties currently espouse the Marxist Leninist doctrine.
'Democracy' and 'republic' are not mutually exclusive concepts. The US has a democratic|representative|constitutional|federal republic.
It's quite disturbing to see an uptick in this claim in the recent years, as if democracy in principle is not American and ought be discarded in favor of a more illiberal system of governance.
(Also, the pledge is not law, so it's a curious reference to cite as some authority on the matter.)
- Non compulsory voting
- first past the post
- superpacs
- the electoral college
All contribute to an oligarchy, not a democracy. The US system seems to be designed to “feel” like a democracy while actually preserving the power of moneyed interests and land owners. It’s crazy to me that the UK has less if an oligarchy despite still having a monarchy.
This is the best short description of what the US and other Western governments are today. My only thing that puzzles me is why traditional authoritarian governments haven't copied them yet
It's mostly the US... New Zealand, Taiwan, Australia do it much better.
Of course the media is still an impressive machine of control (see Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent), but again even the media is a little bit better outside the US.
Every time I see this I think our school system has failed to adequately describe the difference between “democracy” and “republic”.
One is Greek for a concept. The other is Latin for the same concept. How this concept expressed itself in Greek and Roman society and law is complex and there were cultural differences, but what has happened between 1789 and 2021 is a whole lot of tea leaf reading into nothing.
We don’t have a King, nor Nobility, nor Serfs, nor Knights, and slavery has been abolished, so we’re a Republic. Or a Democracy, because we govern ourselves and this is the concept these words describe.
A serf or knight can always blame their Lord for their problems, and Lords can always blame a King, but we get no one but ourselves to blame for our problems because they are entirely of our own making. That’s self-government, that’s democracy, and that’s responsibility.
