Whether a country is democratic or not depends on if the people control the distribution of resources and wealth. America is a capitalist country. In a capitalist country, capital distributes resources and wealth through the market. Most of the wealth in the US belongs to a few capitalists. The so-called democracy in the west is about the election of a government. It is to elect a government that redistributes the wealth from taxes. It is said that every citizen has a say in how the tax money should be used. So western democracy is about tax money. In European welfare countries, the tax rate is high, so the election makes some sense as a democracy. In the US, the tax rate is low so the election of the government actually controls only a very small amount of the wealth. Tax is not about the accumulated wealth, it is about the wealth increment. Tax is only a fraction of the increased wealth. That’s all the voting can say about the small amount of wealth. Even with a small amount of wealth, citizens have no complete say in elections.
First, the US government has three branches: judicial, executive, and congress. citizen has no vote on judicial power. If we count the power in three branches, then the election only controls, two third of the government's power.
Second, an election must be constitutional. Democracy is confined in the constitution cage. The constitution was written by a bunch of slave owners. Washington is a slave owner. Jefferson is a slave owner. The slave owners codified their will and enforce all Americans to obey their will. So American democracy is limited. The US democracy is legitimate only if it obeys what the slave owner allowed 200 years ago.
Third, the media is a de facto power that can mobilize the wealth and resources of society, more than the government can. Specifically, it influences government policy determinately. In a sense, media power is the real power controlling the government power. It makes the election empty. That’s why the participation rate in the US election is so low. It is really not the election that can control.
The vast resources and wealth are controlled by a few oligarchs. Only a small fraction is for the “democratic election” to decide. And even the election is empty because capital is really deciding the election outcome and the government policy. The people, citizens who can vote, really have no control of the government and the policy of the government.
The largest government expense, the defense budget, never shows up in the election campaign. No platform of any candidate ever says they will cut the military expense. The US is the most powerful in the world militarily. Yet the US has the most “security” issues and faces the most immanent “threats” in the world, according to the mainstream media.
The US government is not the government of the people, by the people, and for the people. The US government is the government of the military-industrial complex, by the military-industrial complex, and for the military-industrial complex.
