on democracy

TL;DR: many conservatives lately love reminding everyone that the US is not a democracy, it's a federal constitutional republic, using that fact to explain and rationalize political phenomena that benefit the right, when a pure democratic approach would benefit the left. the nature of the electoral college, as one example, as if there is no democracy anywhere within our political system, or that our political processes aren't even based on fundamentals of democracy.  to many on the right, it's more importantly to smugly sound correct, than actually be correct.

one popular falsehood that conservatives have been spreading lately, swirls around the concept of "democracy" and whether or not the US has any. i dunno, i don't really understand what they're after.

but let's unpack this, and see if we can show it for the--stupid--that it is.

in any kind of political conversation or debate, just wait for someone who leans left to make a comment about "american democracy", or that something or other is a "threat to our democracy". that's pretty much when those on the right will climb all over themselves to blurt out with smug pride "you're wrong. the US is not a democracy, it is a constitutional republic." as if there is no democracy, pure or representative, anywhere in the system at any level. after all, for these folks it's more important to play smart, than it is to be correct, or understand the context of the conversation, let alone try to understand how our government works and why.

a pretty good example of this the past couple of years is the debate around the electoral college.

(spoiler alert: i actually agree with the electoral college process, but that’s a blog article for another day.)

let's for a moment get out of the way that both sides are a little bit wrong about the facts behind their position. meaning, when the left pops off about how the electoral college is a relic from the past that needs to be replaced, it's really mostly about the fact that they lost two recent presidential elections to it. and of course when the right pops off about how it needs to stay because of some lofty originalist ideals (that they may not even fully understand), it's mainly about the fact that they won, twice recently, while losing the popular vote, and that the electoral college is the only defense the real americans from the heartland have against urban elites. sigh...

even president trump was famously against the electoral college...
wait for iiiiit... waiiiit for iiiit...
until he won.

smdh. [eyeroll emoji]

but, see? this is today's political right... ethics, morals, and critical thinking are out... winning and loyalty are in. being confident is more important than being correct. y'know, it's a little disorienting for the party of self described right-wing patriots to continue becoming more and more anti-american.

so here we go...

when someone from the left uses the word "democracy" in a conversation about the electoral college, no doubt the smug ignorance of the right will come back with their misinformed "the US isn't a democracy..." nonsense.

sigh... pure nonsense... almost completely wrong.

even conventionally educated people actually believe that the US government is not built on principles of democracy!

nope, wrong.

here are the facts about the US, and they are undisputed:

our systems of government throughout the US range from municipal, to counties, to states, and up to the federal government. most (but yes, not all) decisive actions taken by these levels of government are based on the collective tally of a purely democratic, majority wins, vote. often that involves all citizens voting. often it involves the voting of elected representatives (city council, state assembly, the US congress). even in those situations, most often that collective tally is done by a simple majority, reflecting a pure democracy or representative democracy. occasionally, in well-defined situations, a super majority is needed. even then, the decision is based on core principles of democracy.

even in the various levels of the judiciary, when panels of jurors are involved, it's a majority or well-defined super majority that rules. when panels of judges are involved, even up to supreme court decisions themselves, again, a majority is that it takes.

in fact, there are ONLY TWO collective decisions made in this country, throughout any and all levels of government, the ONLY ones that does not rest on a simple- or super-majority based on democracy, is the way we choose the person who is selected to "preside" over the executive branch of our federal government, and the way we amend our constitution.

at this point you may be thinking i'm making a case against the electoral college, i'm not. if there is only one place where a simple majority should not rule is in this case.

i do get the vibe though. the electoral college design came from a time when states were individually the most significant governing force in the lives of americans. the federal government, while in a position to override decisions that support more than one state, was primarily an loosely organizing force. there was a time when the 10th amendment was the most powerful one. (and if you just found yourself having to look up what the 10th amendment is, you kinda just helped prove my point).

the federal government is one that we put in place to handle things that are more efficiently handled collectively (transportation, national defense, environmental protection, interstate commerce), things that naturally ignore boundaries or are simply more efficient when regionalized. the executive branch of the federal government are the agencies put in position to provides those services to and between the states. as a result, voting for this president using a nationwide majority vote (ie, pure democracy) didn't make sense, because presiding over the federal government's executive branch was more about representing the needs of our collection of states, than it was for representing the people, per se.

fast forward to modern times, the most powerful governmental force in americans' lives is no longer the state government, rather it is now the federal government. the feds control more, tax more, give more, and demand more than any other level of government. in many ways, starting early in the 20th century, this country operates like a single entity. and the more powerful the federal government gets, the weaker and more anachronistic the idea of a state government becomes. so with that in mind the electoral college--a design for when the country operated very differently--seems out of place. if the feds are the most powerful level of government, then why does a citizen from wyoming have a vote that is worth more than a citizen from new york?

conservatives and republicans will try to weakly rationalize, using pseudo-intellectual pretzel gymnastics, about how the electoral college is a bulwark against the tyranny of the majority and prevention of mob rule, when they have no idea what they're talking about. it sounds good, but is completely empty in meaning regardless of what direction you look at it. for the most part, they buy into these lies through right-wing clickbait sites who feed it to them in ways that keep them clicking, and in doing, convince the easily-convinced of made up reasons that don't reflect history.

in short, this isn't what the electoral college is for. the design has nothing to do with political majorities/minorities at the individual level. rather, the office of president is in place to execute services nationwide, between the states, and lead foreign policy collectively on behalf of the states united.

the federalist papers are right there... read them...

the electoral college was designed to be a *mix* of two things: primarily, the defense of the rights of the states, and to some degree the proportional rights of the people being governed. nowhere in anything written by any of our founders did the idea appear that it was a bulwark against mob rule. that truthiness is simply the result of 21st century internet fiction.

that's the difference between truth and truthy. something that is truthy is true to me, because it feels like it should be true. and when it comes to why the electoral college exists, conservatives don't care about what's true, only about what is truthy, because the truthy story fits better to what they want to be true.

as for protecting the rights of minority positions and defending against mob rule and the tyranny of the majority, that is what a responsible legislature does, checked by the judicial branch, and put into action by an ethical executive branch in a way they interpret and implement. to pretend that a voting system that fills one single federal office is the protector/defender the right claims it to be is simple ignorance, created by lack of education, combined with manipulation by echo chamber media, designed to anger and scare.

another way to put it is this: the way to prevent the majority from becoming a mob is NOT to give the power to the minority, effectively making them the mob. this doesn't work in either case, and thus makes no logical sense. that is, of course a role of the courts. they are empowered to interpret the law and ensure there is a balance between the legitimate claim of the majority to influence what it wants, and at the same time ensure that the rights and considerations of the minority position are protected. a law that is passed by simple majority, that is interpreted to unreasonably take from or penalize members of the minority position, quite often provides the grounds for that law being struck down as illegal or unconstitutional.

for those who say "if it wasn't for the electoral college, there would be no incentive for presidential candidates to campaign outside of major urban centers". well, that's simply misleading at best, wrong at worst:

1.  it is already possible to earn 270 electors by simply winning 11 states, ignoring 39 others. but no one does that.
2. presidential candidates already ignore most states. the fiction that a candidate would only campaign in urban states has been replaced with the unfortunate reality that candidates pretty much only campaign in a few swing-states. those states, big or small, that are seen as a lock one way or the other get ignored. so even if conservatives were right, it's still true that most states are being ignored.
3. the president of the united states is simply not as powerful as many think the position is. the dumber this country gets, the less we realize or remember that the president runs 1/3 of the federal government. he's not a CEO, he's not an entrepreneur, he doesn't have the power to do much beyond what the congress and the judiciary, and thus the american people allow him to do.

so based on all this, should we fight to repeal and replace the electoral college? no. we shoudn't.

i still take the position that the electoral college is a good thing for our country, for the reasons i stated above (not to mention the reasons stated by our founding fathers), and luckily it would take a strong bi-partisan effort across several levels and branches of government to change. therefore, getting rid of it is never going to happen until we pretty much all agree we want it to. but we don't.

but to look at the way we elect the president, which does not use a purely democratic nationwide popular vote, and extend that to mean that nowhere in the US do we govern using principles of democracy is just lazy. it comes from a selfish desire to appear smart and shut down the conversation even when one is wrong. that's worse than bad citizenship. it's blatantly anti-american.