So democracy isn't too popular in America right now, specifically because it doesn't seem to be giving anyone everything they want. The fascists see it as an obstacle for their authoritarian agenda, and the leftists see it as legitimizing a system of violence. I've seen all kinds of arguments as to why democracy doesn't work, and it irks me to my core because the arguments against democracy don't hold water and only serve to enable authoritarian power for whoever can manage to convince everyone to put them in charge.

Democracy is the institutionalization of conflict. The other options for settling conflict include giving power to a central authority, or to kill everyone who disagrees. The latter is normally unpalatable to most people, whereas the former is dependent on the naive believe in the unchanging benevolence of a central authority. All authorities are people, regardless of what agreements or documentation that they may be claiming to act from, and sooner or later an individual will be completely self serving. The fewer individuals involved in the pipeline of power, the more likely that self serving interests will dominate.

Democracy opens the pipelines of power to ensure the maximum number of individuals are involved in the political process. Remember that politics is the procedures by which it is decided who gets what, when, and how. It may become physically and cognitively impossible for all of the people to decide every facet of their communities at all times, and representative democracy is one offered solution for that. America has claimed a mixed system of both representatives and direct democracy for certain issues presented to the people.

But if Democracy is so great, then why is it that it has led to a place where it has failed so badly, that many are clamboring to see it gone? I argue that democracy has not failed, but been intentionally sabotaged by individuals who wish to see it gone. I argue that democracy has not been implemented in a stable, good faith way in this country.

There are many democracy scholars out there who argue about what the various facets of democracy entail, up to including perhaps a dozen or more detailed qualities that are fought over constantly. I favor a simpler model that is more qualitative than quantitative, cobbled together from several different studies on the subject. Admittedly I do not specialize in democracy scholarship, but this framework has helped me identify some significant problems in our democracy.

So first and most obvious is the need for a fair process. One person should get one vote. On the surface, this is achieved in the US fairly reasonably for voters, with voter fraud being a very rare phenomenon. This is sometimes brought into question with the voting machines, but nothing concrete from a reputable source has been suggested as far as I know about their unreliability. There are of course ways that the US does mitigate this factor, through both the electoral college and jerrymandering, but on the surface, each registered voter gets one vote in the regular elections.

Which brings us to the second point, the regularity of elections. The more often an election is had, the more opportunities for the participants to speak their minds. The US has been very good, better than most countries, about holding regular elections at scheduled intervals for over two hundred years. The idea of suspending an election is (nearly) unthinkable. Other governments are able to hold elections at even irregular intervals in addition to the regular ones, thus giving more opportunities for changes (or affirmations of continuity).

Here is where it starts getting dicey though. The third aspect of a democracy is the participation of all eligible citizens in the vote. This is admittedly oversimplified, for there are great fights to be had over who is eligible, who should be a citizen, and so forth. It is a fact that minors are an exploited class in the US (and most places) and possess very little in the ways of rights and privileges. However, this argument is not what is important to me here. Participation has dwindled in this country over the decades, but has made an overall resurgance in recent years while still remaining abysmal. This is reflective of the idea that voting has no significant impact on day to day life, which if you have been paying attention for the last few days you should perhaps be rethinking that line of thought.

The fourth aspect is related, in that democracy should have its voters be educated or familiar with the issues at hand, and be aware of how it can and will be dealt with. The US has absolutely been compromised on this front. Most people are not politically literate, unable to grasp the relationship of political cause and effect, and have instead replaced their awareness with a dull hope for univeral change without knowing the specifics of that change, the process for that change, nor who would bring about that change. Education on the civic process has been replaced with revolutionary evangelism.

Finally, the fifth aspect is a double edged sword but is necessary for a self-regulating democracy: no topic is closed for discussion. All things can be revisited. If slavery is the law of the land, it can be rejected. But if universal healthcare becomes unpopular, so too can it be taken away. This is a point of contention with a lot of people, that things should have a finality to it and that we should not continue to reaffirm things that seem like common justice. But that is simply not how the universe works. We must constantly fight against entropy, because democracy is the institutionalization of conflict. Those who decry universal justice for all will constantly raise their heads, but those who demand it must not stay silent, either.

One of the largest misconceptions about democracy, I feel, is that it exists entirely within an election. This is untrue. The election is the final step of a political process, the presidential election being the final step of a very long political process that encompasses previous elections.

An election is the point in which a representative, or a ballot measure, is voted upon. Before that point are endless community discussions that occur everywhere from your neighborhood council to letters to lawmakers, to an overall interaction of the people amongst themselves. The refusal to participate in that procedure creates extremely skewed results when it finally comes to an election.

In conclusion, we do not practice a democracy here in the US. The rights that have not been exercised are rotting on the vine, and the blame is being laid at the feet of our elites who either are powerless within the framework of our civilization, do not care, or actively wish to create a more hostile world for everyone. Our elites are to blame, but we have not used the easy tools at our fingertips to police them.

The root of this is to always further your education, and to diversify your avenues of thought, and to participate in your communities and allow your point of view to be introduced to them while taking in theirs. We should not dismiss the only real power any of us have ever possessed just because it is possessed by us all. The zero-sum thinking on voting is a dimwitted and shortsighted shot in the foot that only serves to disenfranchise us.

I have encouraged information management, and I continue to do so, always keep your health a primary concern. But I ask also to listen and to learn, and to remember that our political state of being is not merely decided in early November.