The majority of Americans believe that democracy is the ultimate evolutionary cycle of governance. They say that it offers people power and it is simply the best system. Even if the claims are true wholly or to a certain extent, should we cease? Is what we practice the best? If the tenets are true, then we should stop here.
Democracy and power
Democracy empowers the people. In the USA, they practice representative democracy. Thus, citizens vote for representatives who are tasked with governing. What is the difference between representative democracy and a republic? In fact, it is quite far from power, which is afforded to people under a given democracy. However, in this case, there are no persons under direct democracy. We should agree that democracy offers people power albeit minimum.
In a representative democracy, people are given the power to vote their leaders. How can your choice be of value? We ought to be equipped with the knowledge to decide. Where can you get this information? In the US, news originates from major media outlets such as newspapers, TV, and many others.
Unfortunately, very few individuals own media conglomerates. Thus, can you trust a corporation to disseminate unbiased news and select stories, which are relevant to the populace? You will realize that the largest media extravaganzas in life may not have shaped your views on various things in the world.
Influence on people
It is true that even representative democracy can afford to influence people to a small extent. The majority of people who are eligible to vote to reside in the middle of the political spectrum of the country. Thus, they may not be interested in changing things as such. For instance, any politician to suggest serious changes of electoral process nearly means failure of such changes. It can also mean political suicide. In summary, reforms required to fix the system can’t happen since the system cannot allow it.
Is it the best system?
With deep examination of the power given to the people for self-governance by democracy, in its current form, is nearly hopelessly flawed. Is democracy now liberal or conservative? Others that flawed were communism and socialism. According to Marx, communism and socialism would be built upon foundations that were laid by advanced capitalist development. We are not saying that the best alternative is communism.
Democracy cannot work if it is a republic. Also, it cannot work if you leave people to be served by selective media. It can never work if votes are stolen and, in our case, it just does not work.