Polls closed on Tuesday evening in the United States’ latest democratic
spectacle: the midterm elections — a topic the rest of the world has
already had to hear far too much about and will continue to hear about, as
some of the results may take days or weeks to confirm.

What we do know is that the “red wave” promised by Republicans did not
exactly pan out; while the GOP is likely to take control of the House of
Representatives, a deadlock looms in the Senate. The outcome of the
crucial Senate race in Georgia will likely be postponed to a December
run-off.

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/11/9/has-us-democracy-failed-for-good

The delays and uncertainty mean the timing is ripe for a new cycle of
election denialism, with growing mistrust in state institutions suggesting
it will be increasingly difficult for the US to keep up democratic
appearances.

In this year’s race for the Senate, House and other offices, a majority of
Republican candidates have denied or cast doubt on President Joe Biden’s
victory in 2020. So we will likely see quite a lot of politicians triumph
in an electoral system they themselves have denounced as fraudulent.

Not that those who lose are guaranteed to accept the verdict either. Kari
Lake, the Republican gubernatorial candidate in Arizona who was narrowly
trailing Democrat Katie Hobbs late on Tuesday night, outlined her approach
as follows: “I’m going to win the election, and I will accept that result.”

Meanwhile, as the “red wave” fails to inflict its intended damage, there
will undoubtedly be a deluge of baseless allegations of fraudulent postal
ballots and other claims of deceit and underhandedness, and potentially
even legal challenges à la Donald Trump in 2020.

As we learned in kindergarten, you cannot accept the rules of the game
only when you win. And while the rules in this case are undeniably unjust
— albeit not in the way election result deniers say they are — the current
electoral tantrum is setting the stage for a potentially massive electoral
meltdown in the presidential race of 2024. The US electoral system is once
again up for appraisal in the country the Electoral Integrity Project
previously ranked as having the worst elections out of all Western
democracies.

Indeed, the flaws of US democracy have long been glaringly apparent, but
this century has propelled them further into the spotlight.

In 2000, for example, a majority of US voters cast their ballots for
Democrat Al Gore. There ensued protracted national drama over hanging
chads and Electoral College votes in the state of Florida, and the US
Supreme Court eventually handed the 2000 election to George W Bush
instead, who went on to make a name for himself laying waste to
Afghanistan and Iraq along with the English language.

In 2016, too, presidential contender Hillary Clinton won the popular vote
but lost the election to Trump. This was, again, thanks to the
machinations of the Electoral College, a slavery-era relic whose arcane
and convoluted nature was designed to give more power to slave states and
to ensure that “democracy” would never be, you know, democratic.

There is also gerrymandering — a tradition as American as apple pie,
whereby partisan state legislatures engage in not-so-subtle voter
redistricting in order to dilute the electoral power of demographics
likely to vote for the opposing party. Imagine how up-in-arms the US would
be over such behaviour in, say, Venezuela.

Then there is the issue of campaign finance and the sheer amount of money
that goes into the whole electoral process — funds that could certainly be
used for healthcare, affordable housing, education, or any number of other
initiatives that would better serve the needs of the average US inhabitant
than a perpetual election cycle sustaining a two-party monopoly.

In 2010, the Supreme Court reversed campaign finance restrictions to allow
corporations and wealthy donors a more transparent hand in buying
political influence. In these latest midterms, federal and state spending
was expected to exceed $16.7bn, making them the most expensive midterms in
the history of the US — funny, when common Americans’ economic struggle
was the hottest election topic.

And in September, The New York Times found that at least 97 members of
Congress had “bought or sold stock, bonds or other financial assets that
intersected with their congressional work” or had reported similar
financial activity by their spouse or child. Talk about a racket.

To be sure, while US democracy ostensibly consists of “rule by the people”
and all that good stuff, the system thwarts any approximation of actual
popular control over anything. Citizens are, of course, permitted to
periodically traipse to the ballot box to participate in the whole
democratic charade and symbolically validate the continued tyranny of a
bipartisan elite.

And yet even the largely cosmetic exercise of the right to vote has
suffered widespread additional obstructions in the aftermath of the 2020
presidential election, which two-thirds of Republicans continue to claim
was won by Trump and not Biden. Numerous states have implemented voting
restrictions, from the elimination of ballot drop-off locations to more
creatively sinister manoeuvres like banning the distribution of water to
voters, which inevitably disproportionately affects minority voters
waiting in long lines.

Speaking of disproportion, there is also the matter of the US Senate,
described in the New Yorker as the “almost comically malapportioned body
that gives Wyoming’s five hundred and eighty thousand residents the same
voting power as California’s thirty-nine million”. It’s an arrangement
that was also devised to favour white landowners.

Again, equal representation has never been the name of the game. To date,
the US has had a total of no more than 11 Black senators.

Ahead of the midterms, Biden warned that “democracy is on the ballot for
all of us”. Never mind that Biden himself is complicit in a fundamentally
undemocratic panorama where “one person, one vote” has never been an
option — and where merely trying to comprehend the Electoral College can
give you an aneurysm.

Significantly, most Americans favour replacing the Electoral College
system with a direct popular vote. But listening to that majority would be
dangerously democratic.

Earlier this year, a Brookings Institution report worried that US
democracy was “failing”, and that in doing so it was, God forbid, putting
capitalism at risk. The solution, according to the report’s authors, was
for US corporate capitalist heavyweights to intervene even more heavily in
politics, ie to do more of what made the US an undemocratic corporate
plutocracy in the first place.

This midterm season, it has once again been made painfully clear that
electoral democracy in the US is failing. But since US democracy was
designed to be undemocratic, is it not also succeeding in its failure?

### - very interesting article suggesting an observer's view as
seen/witnessed by everyone 'outside' of america? an intensely critical
view that tends to suggest that 'democracy' (so called) was never a true
democracy in the literal sense but only a convenient description/lie
designed to maintain the 'illusion' of democracy in name only... something
that has really become increasingly obvious over the years via the
internet to everyone except perhaps american politicians themselves?

the 'point' being that in this age of almost instant communication via
networking, the truth is actually becoming much harder to hide/bury with
america acting as though no one really realises how it's being (and has
perhaps always been) maintained until now to deliver what is actually
pre-decided outcomes worked out entirely behind the scenes regardless of
how people actually vote...

a very curious situation indeed wherein 'democracy' either pulls its socks
up and thereby becomes a 'true' democracy or risks failing altogether!

something which, of course, applies not only to america but also to the
rest of the world who often 'uses' the term democracy and yet actually
flouts it/always works around it to engineer the outcome? (the uk being
exactly that!)

this being something the right-wing are particularly well familiar with
due to actually being a minority group themselves and thus forced to use
every means available to them (including outright lies) just in order to
level the playing field in order to be 'able' to win elections!

that although this might 'seem' to be rather negative/damning, what
'could' come out of all this might just nevertheless be a more genuine
working of democracy altogether! one in which minority groups - regardless
of their wealth/influence etc - would perforce have to learn to remain in
their place and abide by the popular vote on 'every' occasion instead of
resorting to outright manipulation!

something which is actually hopeful for humanity!