A REQUIEM FOR AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” ___ John Adams

“Totalitarianism is never content to rule by external means, namely, through the state and a machinery of violence; thanks to its peculiar ideology and the role assigned to it in this apparatus of coercion, totalitarianism has discovered a means of dominating and terrorizing human beings from within.”____ Hannah Arendt

If a democracy’s elected leaders unite against violence, democracy tends to survive. Where elected politicians collude with insurrection, democracy is in danger.” ____ Michael Ignatieff

“The idea that each corporation can be a feudal monarchy and yet behave in its corporate action like a democratic citizen concerned for the world we live in is one of the great absurdities of our time”. ___ Kim Stanley Robinson

“If American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land.” ___ Franklin Roosevelt

Democracy was Already on Life Support

I and several other authors have spent a good deal of time and effort to convince our deer in the headlights fellow citizens what is at stake in the coming presidential election (Note: https://readmedium.com/the-fanatical-fascist-fungus-is-upon-us-please-america-wake-up-and-smell-the-jackboot-polish-b81f695a472f; also note: the entire Dec/2023 issue of The Atlantic). Essentially, returning Donald Trump to power will be the bitter end of Democracy in America. However, my and other’s missives might be a bit misguided. Reasons for this reassessment are manifold and include at least the following observations:

1) Given our highly politicized media, plus a polarized and semi-literate society, we were mostly preaching to the choir. Hence, those who need them most, will never see them;

2) Given the psychological tendency of “reactance” and politics of spite, most of our rantings might actually strengthen the recalcitrance of those only mildly aligned with anti-democratic forces;

3) Democracy is mostly a mythical misrepresentation of our system of government; and,

4) Voting, while essential, is only a portion of the pattern of influence within a preponderance of oligarchic institutions that distort and displace broader societal interests (especially regarding widespread economic well-being).

Generally speaking, our system of government was designed to curb democratic processes and products. For the Greeks, who invented the term, Democracy was perhaps the worse form of government, given its high propensity for “mob rule”, and/or elite manipulation. Their preference was for Monarchy, if one could acquire a benevolent “philosopher king”, but they recognized that a “tyrannical dictator” was equally, if not more, likely. Thus, they concluded they might be better off with Aristocracy, if they could find a few good and noble men. If NOT they would flip to the “Dark Side”, called OLIGARCHY (the rule of rich, powerful, and corrupt sociopaths). Some later political theorists suggested an “The Iron Law of Oligarchy” with this den of vipers scenario relatively inevitable. It is also noteworthy that the Greeks saw the shift between the numbers of rulers and good/evil forms as a ever-repeating cycle.

In an earnest attempt to break the cycle, our Founding Fathers created a mixture of completing elements, with “checks and balances” in the hope of preventing the concentration of power. Therefore, the US Republic was never intended to be a pure Democracy, aside from partial piety for the “consent of the governed”, the absolute “rule of law”, the Bill of Rights, and a “living constitution”. From time to time, we were more enthusiastically devoted to democratic principles, but for the most part, our mixed constitutional form has produced Aristocracies, with leanings toward (if not completely captured by) Oligarchy.

At present, America is more oligarchic than we have ever been, with separation of powers substantially eroded and only slightly less a Kleptocracy (rule of thieves) than say the average Banana Republic. Following the concerted elite attack upon the shared powered and prosperity arrangements of the New Deal, Democracy as well as Capitalism were systematically dismantled. Since the late 1970s we have devolved into a Neofeudal Economy. Initially fought over by the old industrialists and the all-powerful global bankers, it is now a full-blown Techno-Feudalism (ruled over by those who wield the machinery of financialization and platform monopolization).

The Robber Barons of the New Gilded Age

As statistical historian, Peter Turchin describes, the Information Age produced an overabundance of elites (Note: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_overproduction), and these Übermenschen usually demand ever increasing immunity from laws/regulations as well as the ability to rig the economy in their favor, which requires inordinate, yet clandestine, political power. Consider how the new tech instant billionaires (nerds who could not get laid, mostly), use their monstrous surveillance and influence capabilities, not the mention armies of lobbyists, to expand their dominion over nearly all facets of human existence. Meanwhile, the financialization of everything, everywhere, all the time, has made the Mother-of-All Ponzi Schemes Economy sacrosanct and the B(w)ankers (broadly defined to include Pirate Equity and Vulture Capitalists) “too-big-to-fail/or jail”. The financial feeding frenzies created the illusion of a technological unicorn-cornucopia. And it has made problematic technologies unregulatable, and their newly minted Masterbaters of the Universe virtually untouchable. According to them (and their logic of “trickle-down economics”), we vassals of the New Medieval Earth, owe them our complete allegiance and they will soon have their version of knights, bishops, and bureaucrats (not to mention our fellow serfs ) to enforce it. They have effectively transformed the working and middle classes of America to debt and digital serfdom. Plus, progress toward General Artificial Intelligence could make a significant portion of the population redundant and irrelevant. In the process, the undercurrents of feudalism ever present in US system (See: https://readmedium.com/adfcf0c46ac7/edit) have bubbled-up again to the surface setting the stage for total Totalitarianism. Only now our Techno-Feudalists and their associated Fascists are armed with social control mechanisms that would have made Goebbels giddy.

Voting is Not Enough

In the final analysis, periodic elections, especially since so few bother to vote, cannot be the only bulwark of US democracy. Please don’t get me wrong, the coming Presidential Election is absolutely vital. Democracy, such as it is, is clearly on the ballot. However, even if we are able to temporarily turn-back the greatest threat since the Civil War, oligarchic and fascists forces and their heavily rigged institutions will remain. Anti-democratic forces from the Electoral College, the captive Supreme Court, the hamstrung regulatory agencies (especially financial), and the mainstream Economics Cult to the Central Banking Cartel, the Campaign Finance Laws, the Political Parties, rules of legislative/executive behavior, etc. etc. make the anything approaching “the public interest” virtually unattainable. The GOP (Gestapo Operatives Party) has not won a popular majority for decades, and its rabid voter suppression and Gerrymandering enterprise, as well as gaming antiquated Electoral College system have made “free and fair” elections increasingly precarious. Furthermore, their dedication to oligarchy is unquestionable, and their recent flirtation with populism (aided by Anarcho-Capitalist malarkey) is merely a cynical ploy. Meanwhile, the Democratic (Republican Lite) Party has actually been nearly as pronounced in its pandering to plutocrats, yet its attachments to the rule of law and consent of the governed are at least palpable. Nevertheless, if we are unwilling to seriously reform and revitalize democratic processes (especially “equality before the law”), across the board, as well as better police the torrent of misinformation and intimidation, then America’s puny and impaired experiment with Democracy will indeed be over.