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So, with this definition in mind, we can quickly dismantle the claim that the US is a democracy:
1: PEOPLE don't cast a vote for president. They cast a vote that is considered by an Elector from the Electoral College that votes for their state in the election.
2: There are a variety of means in which a minority position can be forced through Congress in the United States, such as an Executive Order, or with the Executive Veto.
3: The way that the votes are distributed is fairly gerrymandered. The vote distribution of the Electoral College is not proportional. As an example, one person from Vermont's vote, is worth the same as three people from Texas. In this way, less populous states actually hold more power in the vote.
4: The commoners have almost no say in their actual government. A study published a few years ago found that the average American has pretty much zero effective say in the policy decisions that affect them.
- Claes Wallin (韋嘉誠) repeated this.
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Let's look a little deeper into that, now. Most Americans describe themselves as in a Democracy. But what is a Democracy? To answer that, we need look at the origin of the word in Greek: Dēmokratía. When translated to english, this means "rule of the commoners" In the parlaiments of the Greek city-states, each and every person whom was not a slave was given the right to vote in open forums held about the topics of the day and the majority vote would be adopted as the position.
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@lilitu By your definition, there is no democracy in this world. That makes the term not very useful.
Lilitu
Claes Wallin (韋嘉誠)
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