Democracy

Democracy is a fragile and at times chaotic creature. It requires a certain amount of trust and societal goodwill that cannot be fully guarded against with even the most elaborate system of checks and balances, important though they are. It can be snuffed out in a violent coup or slowly starved over the course of decades. It can be undermined by foreign powers, or destroyed from within.

And yet as vulnerable as democracy is, it is a force of incredible power. Able to harness the greatest abilities that human intelligence possesses, the ability to organize, to transcend beyond base animal impulses in order to work towards a collective vision. And while despotism can build the pyramids or the Palace of Versailles, only through democracy can the higher ideals of justice and liberty be achieved. It is the sole system of governance by which we are able to redress our grievances, to compete on equal footing for the merit of our ideas, rather than subject to the philosophy of might makes right. It is the equalizer in society, a means by which to improve our lives without the use of force.

The threats that undermine this mercurial vehicle of justice and liberty are numerous and varied. For the first time since the Civil War, there was a serious, organized, and large-scale attempt to overthrow American democracy and replace it with a would-be tyrant. What happened on January 6th was not just the result of the emotions of a crowd run over. There was a coordinated, months-long attempt by Trump and his sycophants, who tried to turn an obscure procedural vote into a justification to overturn the will of the people. He repeatedly threatened his own vice president. He enlisted the help of members of Congress, including bumbling Wisconsin Senator (and probable Russian asset) Ron Johnson, who tried to send a fake set of electors saying Trump won. Trump has acknowledged multiple times that he lost, Republican leaders privately admit Trump lost, but publicly they continue to lie, calling the incarcerated insurrectionists “hostages”, vowing to free them and even compensate them. This was an attempted coup through and through, and it is unlikely to be the last.

Additionally, as Trump marches toward his third coronation as king of the Republican party, breezing past weak and spineless excuses for competition, even the most anodyne of critiques of the dear leader will result in a swift and forceful excommunication from the party. The North Country’s very own Elise Stefanik condemned one of her own in Ohio and tweeted the following:

What exactly did this candidate say that was so “inappropriate” Representative Stefanik felt compelled to blacklist him? It must have been pretty offensive right?

“I think he is arrogant. I don’t like the way he calls people names. I just don’t think that’s very becoming of a president”

Oh. He was caught in private saying that he didn’t like how Trump calls people names. Something even his most ardent voters will voluntarily tell you.

This…is not normal behavior. It is not the behavior of someone representing a healthy democracy or someone who even believes in freedom of speech. Holding Trump accountable for anything is a mortal sin in this Republican party. Former representatives Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, who voted with Trump and signed onto almost everything the Republican party was trying to do, chose to help investigate the obvious wrongdoing that everyone saw happen on January 6th, and have since been cast out of their own party, sent death threats, and essentially signed on to the end of their own political careers.

These MAGA party “leaders” do not believe in democracy. They do not believe that people who disagree with them should have any voice in society. It’s why they talk about equality as something to be hated and despised. It’s why they’ve been engaged in a nationwide book-banning campaign and are perpetually trying to restrict voting access however they can. 

The undemocratic strategists of the GOP employ a wide variety of tricks and tactics designed to overturn the will of the majority. In the Senate, a legislative device called the filibuster has been abused by Republican Senators to prevent the passage of popular legislation like voting rights and minimum wage increases. Instead of needing a majority of votes to pass a bill, it raises the threshold to an unachievable 60%, allowing a small minority to hold legislation hostage.

Gerrymandering is another undemocratic tool used by lawmakers which allows them to manipulate districts so they receive a much higher percent of the seats compared to their vote total. While both parties employ this tool, Republicans use it to a much higher degree and frequency, turning 50-50 states like Wisconsin into one-party rule. And even when Democrats win governorships in states like North Carolina, Republicans change the rules, depriving the incoming executive of the powers that the previous governor had. On the topic of North Carolina, a Department of Justice gerrymandering investigation found that state Republicans targeted Black voters with “surgical precision” to deprive them of representation. The unfairness is blatant, it is wrong, often racist, and is at the source of so much of our frustration with our government. Representatives who never have to worry about anything resembling accountability have nothing to fear from the American people in their eyes.

And what the Republican Party cannot do through legislation, they will achieve through the courts. They could never get a majority of people in this country to support an abortion ban, so instead they lied about their true intentions and forced through enough Supreme Court justices to overturn Roe v Wade. In decisions like District of Columbia v. Heller, they employed previously fringe ideas to make it impossible to implement even the most modest of firearm safety laws. They’ve even decided to anoint themselves to be the sole arbiter of presidential election disputes, siding with the party that appointed them in Bush v Gore (coincidentally I’m sure).

The first order of business must be to recognize this threat for what it is. The media, who is often owned by the same multibillion-dollar corporations that finance the Republican party, is always seeking to revert back to a framework of “Congress is in gridlock! Why can’t both sides just sit down and work across the aisle to get things done?” We have to reject this nonsense, and tell the facts as they truly are. This is an anti-democratic movement being run by corporations, power-hungry yes-men (Molinaro), and bigots who falsely use religion as a cloak to discriminate. They don’t want a well-functioning democracy, they don’t want to improve the lives of people that they feel are beneath them. That’s what Republican leadership is about, they’ve forced out everyone else who doesn’t share this mindset. That’s the real reason why “things aren’t getting done” in Washington. They spend billions of dollars a year trying to deceive people into thinking otherwise. Talking about these ideas, about what’s really important in these elections, in a nonjudgemental way, is an important step toward healing the spirit of democracy.

Now as for the structural improvements, the good news is that there is a phenomenal reform bill written and ready to go, called The For the People Act:

“Specifically, the bill expands voter registration (e.g., automatic and same-day registration) and voting access (e.g., vote-by-mail and early voting). It also limits removing voters from voter rolls.

The bill requires states to establish independent redistricting commissions to carry out congressional redistricting.

Additionally, the bill sets forth provisions related to election security, including sharing intelligence information with state election officials, supporting states in securing their election systems, developing a national strategy to protect U.S. democratic institutions, establishing in the legislative branch the National Commission to Protect United States Democratic Institutions, and other provisions to improve the cybersecurity of election systems.

Further, the bill addresses campaign finance, including by expanding the prohibition on campaign spending by foreign nationals, requiring additional disclosure of campaign-related fundraising and spending, requiring additional disclaimers regarding certain political advertising, and establishing an alternative campaign funding system for certain federal offices.

The bill addresses ethics in all three branches of government, including by requiring a code of conduct for Supreme Court Justices, prohibiting Members of the House from serving on the board of a for-profit entity, and establishing additional conflict-of-interest and ethics provisions for federal employees and the White House.

The bill requires the President, the Vice President, and certain candidates for those offices to disclose 10 years of tax returns.”

I love everything about this bill. It blocks Republican attempts to stifle votes, makes it easier for candidates like me who weren’t born into money to compete, and cracks down on corruption and conflicts of interest. Republicans, including Congressman Molinaro, are vehemently opposed to this legislation, and are the sole reason why this isn’t already law. If we defeat him, and reelect President Biden and a Democratic Senate, we can pass this bill and create the greatest reform to democracy in decades.

Additionally, the spirit of democracy must be universal and Puerto Rico has been denied the right to representation in our government after a century under U.S. rule. Senate Republicans blocked the most recent attempt to fully incorporate Puerto Rico following a ballot measure that yielded a slight majority in favor of statehood. Whether they choose to be admitted as a full state, continue on as a territory, or granted independence, we should end this democratic limbo that the territory has been stuck in for some time.

In that same vein, Washington D.C. should be granted statehood and receive full representation and local autonomy. The more than half a million residents currently pay taxes and receive no voting representation, and local government can be overruled by Congress, which Republicans attempted to do as recently as last year. This should be remedied.

We should also continue to call on the Senate to repeal the filibuster. It is a silly tool with no Constitutional basis that should never have existed in the first place.

The Electoral College should be abolished once and for all as well. When the Constitution was first established in 1789, we used to have a system where the winner of the presidential election became president, and the runner-up became vice-president (in the context of today’s world, it’s hard not to picture this idea as anything other than the concept for a buddy comedy). This rule was changed because it didn’t make sense and was impractical in use. I view the Electoral College as being of the same sort of failed electoral experiment. One person one vote is a much more democratic way of doing things, there is no need to keep doing something with no inherent value that actually does the opposite of what a democracy is intended to do.

Economic Democracy

The spirit of democracy should not just be isolated to electoral politics either. We live in a country that was founded on the principle of democracy, by Enlightenment thinkers who feared above all else the consolidation of power. They devised a complex system of checks and balances as a backstop to abuse by the government upon its people. So when you think about the way our economy is structured, ask yourself, are these principles present? In the workplace, do we have a democratic system where workers can advocate for themselves and create a balanced economy? Or are they at the mercy of employers who have all the power? Can businesses and farmers compete in an economy based on merit, are can the largest companies use underhanded methods to secure market share and stifle competition? I would say the economy we have now has been organized under undemocratic, authoritarian principles, lacking the types of checks and balances that a democracy must have.

I think this unrecognized schism between democracy in our political system and authoritarianism in the economy is a major source of frustration that we have not come to terms with. The system we broke away from was a feudalistic monarchy, where a small number of nobles held enormous power over the serfs they ruled over. The serfs did not own the land they worked and lived on, and had little pushback against the abuses of the nobles, who ruled with an iron fist. When you look at jobs like the ones that I’ve worked at, retail and warehouse work for instance, we’re the ones that keep the company in business, we do the work every day. So where does most of the money go? Back into our pockets? Nope. Back into the company? Nope. In publicly traded corporations, the money goes into the hands of investors who receive payouts every quarter of the year. These are people that more often than not have nothing to do with the company, and may not be aware that they even have stock in the company. They just skim the largest profits off the top of everybody who worked hard to keep the place in business.

Our economic system is at odds with our political system. Understanding this truth is key to understanding why things are the way that they are in this country. The business interests, who control the Republican Party, try to undermine the democratic principles of this country by busting unions, defunding regulatory agencies, and pumping out billions of dollars in propaganda every year. It’s this system that gives rise to someone like Trump, the underlying dynamics of our society are more important than the personalities.

Politically, we broke away from a system that said some people are inherently superior to others, this idea of nobles and kings. We said that power comes from the consent of the governed, not that might makes right. But as the industrial revolution traveled from undemocratic Europe to newly independent America, those feudalistic systems carried over, and became the foundation for our modern economy (not to mention the slave plantations of the south which were even crueler than serfdom). When you look at the modern-day economy, where you can be fired at any time and for any reason, where most corporate employers manage employers through intimidation, where you have little say over how much you get paid, and no means by which to improve your position, is this system based upon the principles of democratic rule? Or is it just a carry-over from the authoritarianism that this nation tried to rid itself of? Are the investors who profit off our hard work just the equivalent to a feudal lord in everything but name? Why do we tolerate unlimited power in one section of our lives, but fear it above else in another?

This is where I think labor unions and agencies actively working to breakup monopolies are essential. Unions are democratic organizations by nature, they are led by elected officials where everyone in the union gets a vote. They possess the power to go toe-to-toe with employers and actually give workers the power to demand fairness and dignity in their jobs. It is democracy in the workplace. It is a check on the power of big businesses, in a country founded on checks and balances.

Well-funded agencies like the FTC can provide another check on monopolistic businesses that prey upon workers and small businesses (farmers especially). Enforcing anti-trust laws, investigating wrongdoing, and providing the type of balance that our economy has been sorely lacking for decades. The corporate powers behind the Republican party recognized how effective these agencies were, it’s why they’ve spent so much time and effort targeting them since their inception.

Ultimately, the survival of any democracy is entirely dependent on the ability of its citizens to defend and maintain it. Authoritarianism can be subtle, coming in the form of the quiet intimidation of poll workers, gerrymandering, or voting roll purges. Or it can be bombastic and violent, as it was on January 6th. Strengthening our institutions must go hand in hand with strengthening the spirit of democracy itself, which requires an enlightened constituency working to persuade, to organize, and to lead each other to our higher ideals, rather than a decay into cynicism and a withdrawal from public concerns. Beyond just voting, we can run for office ourselves. We can form and participate in labor unions, in advocacy groups, tenants associations. All these embody the spirit of American democracy, to use the organized power of the ordinary American to achieve extraordinary goals. As Benjamin Franklin once stated, this Republic is ours, if we can keep it. And I intend to do everything I can to keep it.

Policy List

• Granting statehood to Washington D.C.
• Granting the Cherokee nation the congressional representative it is owed
• Granting Puerto Rico statehood or independence, following the results of a petition
• Universal vote-by-mail
• Calling on the Senate to repeal the filibuster, a racist relic of the past that was primarily used to stifle civil rights legislation
• Abolishing the Electoral College and moving to a more democratic popular vote model
• Making Election Day a national holiday
• Reforming the Federal Reserve to allow for democratic appointment of bank presidents
• Ending voting roll purges
• Passing “The For The People Act”