We keep talking about democracy yet people don’t even fully understand the concept, nor how antidemocratic the U.S. has been since the beginning.

People learn and immediately forget that the U.S. Senate was chosen not by the people, but by state legislatures, until 1913.

The Supreme Court isn’t chosen by the people, but rather, by the Executive Branch (or by certain private organizations funded by certain kinds of money who then give a President a list to choose from, if we’re being honest), then approved or rejected by the Senate.

The House of Representatives, you could say, was the only sort-of democratic body created at the federal level, but then you’d have to concede even that’s not true, because Black people weren’t counted as a full person and didn’t have any rights, Native people were not considered citizens with any rights, women didn’t have any rights or representation, and even, for a time, poor white men didn’t have the right to representation in some places.

This legacy isn’t just a stain on our society, it reveals deep cracks in the integrity of the foundation on which this house was built, that cannot be repaired no matter how much reform is attempted. Patches on gaping wounds have shown us that the wounds will always bleed and fester and bleed and fester, again and again.

The rot is coming from within. Our systems, the way they were designed and for what purposes is what keeps us sick… keeps us from healing and thriving.

No one person can change that.
No one political party can change that.

The politicians and political parties that people put their full faith and trust in are often times the worst offenders, maintaining and advancing the rot while selling the public snake oil as a cure.

The cure isn’t them. It’s not politicians or political parties. There are no saviors. There can be no false idols. The cure is each other. Banding together in common cause, for a better society, with better systems and institutions founded in better principles, and better execution of those principles, with better accountability in pursuit of them.

That’s not how you save democracy, but rather, how you BECOME a democratic society. We’re not. Never really have been.

Becoming a democracy is going to take a lot more than the passive action of voting… especially for the same politicians and political parties, over and over again.

As people organized and fought to inject democracy into our antidemocratic governance, the wealthy got angry, organized themselves, and captured the government right in front of everyone’s faces, and using their proxies, told them pay no attention to the moneymen behind the curtain, and that they’ll learn to love it.

Thats where we’ve been for about 50 years. Sinking in the quicksand of oligarchy operating the circus funhouse that they call ‘democracy.’ Down to the point where, for 3 straight Presidential elections, the 2 most unpopular candidates are the only “options” we have.

Just let it sit with you for a bit.