I don’t mind saying it: I am fed up with the nonsense talk by power-mad politicians about “our democracy”. Pelosi et al seem always to be fawning over “our democracy” and calling for what amounts to a military coup in defense of alleged threats to “our democracy”.
The United States is NOT a democracy. It has never been a democracy. The Founders of our current political institutions, centered on the Constitution, did not set up a democracy, in fact they highly distrusted the very concept and made certain that the federal system which they created would not allow the exercise of democracy. The US was never supposed to be a democracy. The Constitution provides for a Republic with limited participation by the public at large. This was wise.
The more democratic the US has become in the last 100 years, the more chaotic it has become. Beginning with the change from state election of Senators to their popular election with the 17th Amendment, to the granting of the franchise to 18-20 year olds with the 26th Amendment, American political discourse has severely deteriorated as irresponsible demagogues whip up emotional electoral campaigns using the money of interfering billionaires and ethnic-minded factional minorities to seize control of government machinery. Democracy has brought the US to the brink of a second civil war. The more democratic the US has become, the more chaotic, violent, emotional, impulsive, and irresponsible political discourse has become. The US would be far better off for everyone if the franchise were restricted to mature adults over thirty years of age, with state appointment of Senators as before.
Of course the demagogues oppose any such notion and on the contrary are pushing to expand the ‘franchise’ to teenagers. Why? Because they know that whoever controls the media therefore controls the voting habits of the uninformed and the immature. Thus they could lock in a permanent stranglehold on the US government, mirroring their monopolistic stranglehold over the media.
