A reminder: how the US is, and is not a democracy

[Craig234]

(This is not a thread about the pedantic issue of people who wrongly talk about 'pure democracy' instead of 'democratic republic'. It's about a functioning democracy).

Let's review what the hell a democracy is supposed to be: there are going to be rulers and laws and policies which affect who gets how much of the wealth created in society, and what rights individuals have. Democracy is the position that the public should get to decide who that government will be, and by doing that what the policies should be.

What we do have in the US is one part of democracy: people get to decide who they want to vote for, and vote, and apart from some voter suppression and distortion of votes being unequal, they basically decide which of the candidates on the ballot to elect.

But that, as good as it sounds like democracy, is pretty much the whole side that is democracy, and not nearly enough.

Our political system is a big business. People who are more 'real democracy', serving the voters, are rare - people like Bernie and AOC. They 'sneak in'.

But the system is heavily weighted against them and for big donor-owned candidates.

I've long quoted a saying, "Politicians have to LOOK good to voters, and DO good for donors".

That means, most politicians' job is, raise enormous amounts of money to buy enough propaganda to get enough votes to win, and 'look good' enough to voters to get enough votes, and to actually vote for the plutocratic policies the wealthy donors who allow them to get elected want.

There are powerful areas of corruption. One is how much big money is critical to getting elected. That alone turns democracy essentially into a 'wealthy interests decide who can get elected' system. It results in the public getting a false choice - when every candidate who is viable serves the wealthy, that's not a real choice but a phony choice.

It's like claiming a car dealership is about getting you any brand and model of car you want, but every salesperson is employed by Ford and will only sell you a Ford. But you can pick which of the Ford salespeople helps you. You got to choose which one, but that's a phony choice about getting any brand of car, and you will get a Ford whichever brand would be best for you.

The second corrupting factor is the lobbying system. This is essentially legalized deferred bribery. Because lobbying is a 'job', handing cash to former politicians and staff who are 'employed' in lobbying masks it being bribery. How much they're paid can be any amount, since salaries aren't set, and that masks large bribery.

The shocking number for this is that over half of members of Congress and staff are paid by lobbying interests when they leave office. And they know those rewards are waiting while they are in office. So who do they listen to, who do that vote for what policies they want - the interest who can pay them later as a lobbyist, or the voters?

Former mega lobbyist Jack Abramoff turned on his industry and explained how it worked, that because he could bring the money, it was as if Congress worked for him, what he wanted he could get.

 

[Craig234]

That is not democracy; it is not the people choosing and getting the policies good for them.

What we have instead of democracy, is a corrupt system of the wealthy setting the policies to benefit themselves at the expense of the public, who get no more input than whether to vote for the clean cut guy, the attractive woman, or the folsky cowboy, all of whom are trying to 'look good' and serving the same wealthy donor interests.

It's so corrupted that studies show the public has essentially zero effect on how Congress votes. The wealthy donors who allow them to get elected not only determine their votes, they write the bills. All Congress has to do is 'look good' spinning their voting, and vote for the bills they're handed.

It doesn't matter that a minority of Congress isn't corrupted like this; if a bill passes 335-100, it still passes 100%, and the 100 didn't change anything.

This is not a democracy, but people are told it is because they get to vote from the 'approved list of people who have been given many millions of dollars by wealthy interests.

The idea of Congress 'debating issues' is basically nonsense. Members don't care what other members say, they care what their donors say and that determines their vote, not hearing a good argument from someone in another state. 'Debate' is useful mostly to allow members to 'look good' to the few of their voters who see what they say. Of course, the rooms while they do that are almost entirely empty.

It's estimated that members spend 50% of their time on the phone raising money. Because that isn't legal in their offices, there are literally offices near Congress they go to to make the calls.

In short, we don't have democracy; we have corruption and a system that tries to look like democracy. You can call or write your representative whenever you like, and weeks or months later get a form letter back from their staff.

It's a rigged system that works for the powerful wealthy interests, and there's no clear fix unless the people decide to elect people who don't serve those interests, like Bernie or AOC, like many were trying to get Bernie as president in 2016 and 2020, and we saw as Obama orchestrated all the other candidates, who each we funded by these interests, uniting against Bernie.

The cost of this corruption is enormous. When Reagan ran, there were fewer than a thousand lobbyists; that grew to over ten thousand registered today, but an estimated 100,000 actual 'lobbyists'. Wikipedia:

The number of lobbyists in Washington is estimated to be over twelve thousand, but most lobbying (in terms of expenditures), is handled by fewer than 300 firms with low turnover. A report in The Nation in 2014 suggested that while the number of registered lobbyists in 2013 (12,281) decreased compared to 2002, lobbying activity was increasing and "going underground" as lobbyists use "increasingly sophisticated strategies" to obscure their activity. Analyst James A. Thurber estimated that the actual number of working lobbyists was close to 100,000 and that the industry brings in $9 billion annually.

So a small number of people actually do the work of handing out yet more legalized bribery, yet 100,000 are getting paid - more legalized bribery - and are 'going underground' to 'obscure their activities'. That is not democracy; it is not the public choosing the policies.

But few talk about the problem, and instead pretend we really have 'democracy'.

The cost: since Reagan, policy changes have caused $50 trillion more to go from the public to the rich. It's estimated that under pre-Reagan policies, the average worker would make $42,000 more today than they do. It's a vicious circle: the corruption gives vast wealth to a few rich people, and some of that wealth is used to pay to keep the corruption in place.

So, no, the US is essentially not a democracy, but a pretend democracy, a con job. But by keeping voters singing the national anthem and saluting the flag and having billions spent on propaganda to convince them who to vote for, the people don't unite against the corruption, and think they do have democracy.

 

[Rogue Valley]

tl;dr

 

[j brown's body]

Some votes are just worth more than others

 

[Grandpappy]

I agree with a lot of that. Selling and buying politicians isn't a good thing. They're supposed to.be working for us, not big money/oil/pharma/whatever.

 

[Athanasius68]

(This is not a thread about the pedantic issue of people who wrongly talk about 'pure democracy' instead of 'democratic republic'. It's about a functioning democracy).

Let's review what the hell a democracy is supposed to be: there are going to be rulers and laws and policies which affect who gets how much of the wealth created in society, and what rights individuals have. Democracy is the position that the public should get to decide who that government will be, and by doing that what the policies should be.

What we do have in the US is one part of democracy: people get to decide who they want to vote for, and vote, and apart from some voter suppression and distortion of votes being unequal, they basically decide which of the candidates on the ballot to elect.

But that, as good as it sounds like democracy, is pretty much the whole side that is democracy, and not nearly enough.

Our political system is a big business. People who are more 'real democracy', serving the voters, are rare - people like Bernie and AOC. They 'sneak in'.

But the system is heavily weighted against them and for big donor-owned candidates.

I've long quoted a saying, "Politicians have to LOOK good to voters, and DO good for donors".

That means, most politicians' job is, raise enormous amounts of money to buy enough propaganda to get enough votes to win, and 'look good' enough to voters to get enough votes, and to actually vote for the plutocratic policies the wealthy donors who allow them to get elected want.

There are powerful areas of corruption. One is how much big money is critical to getting elected. That alone turns democracy essentially into a 'wealthy interests decide who can get elected' system. It results in the public getting a false choice - when every candidate who is viable serves the wealthy, that's not a real choice but a phony choice.

It's like claiming a car dealership is about getting you any brand and model of car you want, but every salesperson is employed by Ford and will only sell you a Ford. But you can pick which of the Ford salespeople helps you. You got to choose which one, but that's a phony choice about getting any brand of car, and you will get a Ford whichever brand would be best for you.

The second corrupting factor is the lobbying system. This is essentially legalized deferred bribery. Because lobbying is a 'job', handing cash to former politicians and staff who are 'employed' in lobbying masks it being bribery. How much they're paid can be any amount, since salaries aren't set, and that masks large bribery.

The shocking number for this is that over half of members of Congress and staff are paid by lobbying interests when they leave office. And they know those rewards are waiting while they are in office. So who do they listen to, who do that vote for what policies they want - the interest who can pay them later as a lobbyist, or the voters?

Former mega lobbyist Jack Abramoff turned on his industry and explained how it worked, that because he could bring the money, it was as if Congress worked for him, what he wanted he could get.

America just voted out a guy from the White House who:
1. Was not a career politician
2. Who spent his life in the private sector and whatever wealth he has is derived from such work
3. Who spent less than his opponent to win his office
4. Who nobody thought had any chance whatsoever of winning.

He was replaced with a guy who:
1. Was a career politician
2. Spent his entire career on government payroll. Yet he seems to have numerous homes.
3. For most of his career, nobody thought he had much of a chance of losing his job.

Remind us all please; Who did you support in 2020?

 

[Craig234]

tl;dr

Then don't post.

 

[Craig234]

Some votes are just worth more than others

That's all you got from the posts?