Houston, we have a problem. Today’s Democrats, who should know better, and Republicans, who should also know better, have absolutely no idea what democracy is, though they regularly use the term to describe what their parties are all about.
I’m not kidding, not one Democrat leader or one Republican leader I have listened to over the past decade or two has gotten within a country mile of even a C+ answer to the question, “What is democracy.” In fact, they never even ask the question, as if the answer is just too obvious to even merit attention.
In fact, today’s party leaders are extremely ignorant of this nation’s historical and legal framework for democracy that turned the nation into the most admired in the modern world. They are in the game for power and wealth, not for the welfare of the people.
If asked, they would answer that democracy is defined by their own party’s partisan platform, or is all about getting out the vote, or is about a single public policy issue like abortion rights or a border wall.
Well, hyper-partisanship is the platform of autocracy, getting out the vote is what Russia’s Putin does so well, and emotional single policy issues are kids’ play compared to the wide and deep knowledge and citizen participation real democracy requires of its citizens.
Then again, how would party leaders know this when they never open an American political history book, let alone a history of ancient Greece, Rome, Israel, Anglo-Saxon England, or pre-modern republican Germany or Netherlands? You get the picture. Or do you?
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Folks, America is stumbling back into the fold of the long history of ignorance and tyranny that this tired, old, polluted globe of ours has seen many times before. And the great majority of we Americans could care less. Why is that?
Part of the reason is that we think we are dispensing our democratic duty just by breathing the air in America, or by getting a high school diploma, or by keeping a job for longer than a couple months, or by voting maybe every four years, even though we most often don’t know what we are voting for.
Sorry folks, each of those things constitute about a D- definition of real democracy and together they add up to about a D+. Time to put on some big boy and big girl pants and make a larger effort than what corporate America tells you to make in their happy-go-lucky product advertisements.
Here are a few hints pointing in the direction of a better definition of democracy. Democracy is about all the checks and balances on central power in the Constitution, like the President keeping his/her hands off the law-making and taxation power of Congress. It is about educating youth in history, law, and science. It is about every citizen participating in public affairs. It is about preventing the wealthy elite from making themselves into the rulers of society. It is about safe streets and peaceful international relations. It is about health and wellness of the type that avoids personal addictions and instead engages people in life-long productive work in the community in professions that support democracy rather than undermine it.
If you think that today’s “democratic” America is going to save you when you get into difficulty, you better think again. Only folks who seriously participate in democracy will learn how to rescue themselves, their families, and their communities from all the predators out there exploiting the ignorant, poor, and distracted in America.
Robert Kimball Shinkoskey is the author of books on democracy, religion, and the American presidency.