What is the so-called democracy in America?

What is the so-called democracy in America?

The Irony of Democracy (Xinhua Publishing House) is a classic book about American political system. Since it came out 40 years ago, it has been reprinted many times. The latest version is 15, which is considered as the representative work of American elite politics. It has a panoramic and multidimensional perspective on how American elite politics works. This book provides a novel and open vision, which causes people to re-evaluate and reflect on the previously familiar American democratic theory.

The author is Professor Thomas Day, a famous American political scientist and public policy scientist. In his book, he described the reality of American democracy as "elite democracy", that is, it is the elite, not the people, who govern the United States. These elites have firmly controlled American politics, and they practice oligarchy, so a real democratic system is not feasible in the United States. In order to support this view, this book is divided into 14 chapters, which investigates the political fields of the United States constitution, people, media, electoral system, political parties, interest groups, Congress, president, courts, government agencies, federalism and so on one by one, and quotes a large number of latest statistical data and poll data.

The book reproduces the ins and outs of many political events and political times, including Vietnam War, Watergate Incident, inflation during Carter's period, globalization trend, four-year balanced federal budget, huge campaign funds, civilian deaths caused by terrorism, and American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This book reveals that few people in America still believe that the government serves the public interest. Most people think that the political system is controlled by a few big interest groups for their own interests, leaving the public behind.

It seems to confirm the views in the book. For more than 20 years in the post-cold war era, most American leaders came from political elites and pursued consistent military diplomacy and economic and trade policies. Nowadays, the American people are beginning to dislike political elites. A number of polls show that the Trump phenomenon has spread to American society. Voters are willing to gamble on the future of the United States and let political lunatics outside the system try their hand. To put it bluntly, American voters no longer want to elect elites with the aura of prestigious schools or lawyers, but only want people outside the system to take power. This trend has also spread to supporters of the Democratic Party.

"Democracy" is one of the most used and abused concepts in the 20th century. This has a lot to do with the United States calling itself a "democratic country." What exactly is American democracy? This book gives the answer.

The United States has established a political management power system with separation of three powers in the US Constitution of 1787, and the presidential election has started from 1789. However, the early presidential election paid great attention to the internal pre-selection of the gentry group, and even used dignitaries to form an electoral college to decide who could enter the election process. In these processes, American elites decided their candidates through internal bargaining, and gradually formed a pattern of bipartisan competition. These gentry were inseparable from the two factions at first, and their * * * was very similar to their religious beliefs and industrial interests. It was not until the formation of the * * * faction represented by Hamilton (similar to centralization) and the federalism faction represented by Jefferson (similar to provincial autonomy) that the two-party election model was formed.

It is worth noting that when the interests of consortia in the north and south States of the United States conflict, the two sides choose to meet. Since the American Civil War, how to protect the interests of national elites has become the main goal, and even policies such as apartheid, discrimination against women's rights and discrimination against immigrants from Asia, Africa and Latin America are more severe than before the Civil War. This situation was not greatly improved until after World War I and World War II. Chinese Americans did not acquire citizenship until the 1950s. The so-called "America has always been a democratic country" does not conform to the historical truth. Democracy has been defended since the founding of the United States. Elite rule is still the mainstream in the United States today, and voting rights are still a symbolic way of participating in politics. This is mainly to avoid the threat of populism to elite politics.

The real mystery of American democracy is money, which dominates the process and result of elections, and behind money are big capitalists and capitalist groups. Thomas Day described the democratic situation of the rich in the United States as "elite democracy", that is, "the elite, not the people, govern the United States". The class background of these elites "mostly comes from wealthy, well-educated, prestigious, famous, white ... big capitalist groups." They come from the upper class, that is, people who occupy or control much more weight than their number in social groups such as industry, commerce, finance, education, military, transportation, municipal institutions, law and so on. "Western democracy under the bourgeois elite fundamentally deviates from democracy, which is the basic principle of majority rule, and is a blasphemy and mockery of democracy.