Let the People Decide (Part I): Democracy is Coming
And not a moment too soon
In 1992, Leonard Cohen put out a song, Democracy, in which he sings of the promise of democracy. In one of the verses, he sings:
“It’s coming to America first
The cradle of the best and of the worst
It’s here they got the range
And the machinery for change
And it’s here they got the spiritual thirst
It’s here the family’s broken
And it’s here the lonely say
That the heart has got to open
In a fundamental way
Democracy is coming to the USA”
Unfortunately, right now in America, contrary to the words of Leonard Cohen, democracy is teetering in the USA.
The latest blow to democracy occurred on Thursday, July 14, 2022, when Joe Manchin, the Democratic Senator from West Virginia, killed any chance for the Democrats to pass a bill addressing climate change and raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations.
In my prior essay, The Revolution Was Not Televised, I talked about the democracy-killing revolution, financed by the Koch Network of billionaires, that has been decades in the making.
This revolution culminated in the recent Supreme Court decisions that rescinded gun restrictions, allowed prayer in schools, overturned Roe v. Wade, and, in the case of West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, blocked the ability of the EPA to regulate businesses that pollute (in fact, the greater aspect of this court ruling was blocking the ability for any government agency from issuing regulations).
I also said that the revolution is one Supreme Court decision from being complete, and that will come next year, when the Supreme Court hears the case of Moore v. Harper.
If the Supreme Court rules with the plaintiff in this case, they would be legalizing a radical change in the way federal elections are conducted—they will give state legislatures sole authority to set the rules for contests, even if their actions violate their state constitution.
What this would mean is a state legislature could decide in the case of a presidential election who they would prefer to give the state electors to. If they didn’t like the candidate the voters selected, the legislature could decide to give the state’s electors to a different candidate.
That sounds horrifying. It could mean the end of democracy as we know it in the U.S.
But as I said at the end of the essay: there is a way out. There is a way to the creation of a more positive and beneficial society and future—and the Supreme Court inadvertently has shown us the path forward. It’s a way that is effectively in use around the world, and in the U.S., in present times.
The Supreme Court, in their decision of West Virginia v. EPA, stated that the reason government agencies don’t have the authority to regulate business is because that is the job of Congress.
The rationale behind the Supreme Court’s decision is that they believe it’s the people’s elected representatives in Congress that should be the ones to make the determination as to how regulated business should be.
Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate Minority Leader, had this to say after the Supreme Court’s ruling on West Virginia v. EPA:
“Today, the Supreme Court gave power back to the people. In siding with the state of West Virginia, the Court has undone illegal regulations issued by the EPA without any clear congressional authorization and confirmed that only the people’s representatives in Congress–-not unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats—may write our nation’s laws.
“The Constitution states clearly that the lawmaking process lies with the people and their elected representatives, not with opaque federal agencies. I am glad the Supreme Court affirmed this fact and hope other overeager bureaucrats take notice.”
That’s a crock of shit. The thing about Mitch McConnell is that he is 100 percent bought and owned by the Koch Network, and has been doing their bidding for years.
Over the years, the Koch Network has used their sphere of influence to fight tooth and nail against government regulations, which means it was an absolute victory for the Network when, in the case of West Virginia v. EPA, the Supreme Court did away altogether with the government’s ability to regulate business.
So how could the Supreme Court have inadvertently shown a path forward?
While the Supreme Court basically played kick the can by removing the authority to make regulations from government agencies, and instead giving the responsibility to Congress to make regulations, anyone who knows how Congress operates knows that’s a joke.
There are too many members of Congress just like Mitch McConnell (and Joe Manchin), who answer only to their sponsors, and could care less about what’s best for the public good.
Congress will never enact climate change legislation, or a Green New Deal, or Medicare For All, or Build Back Better, or significant gun control legislation, or an expanded child tax credit, or free college, or student debt relief, or a higher minimum wage, or more stringent controls of Wall Street, or campaign finance reform, or an end to gerrymandering, or a windfall profits tax, or a wealth tax, or anything else that would be a significant social investment that would benefit the public good.
There’s too many vested moneyed interests that can stop any of these from being enacted. And on top of that is the filibuster, which further makes Congress an immovable object incapable of doing what the majority of Americans want.
And the majority of Americans certainly want the U.S. to become a more fair and equitable society, and behave just like the social democracies of the world.
Yet if the majority of Americans want one thing and Congress wants the opposite, what choice do Americans have to change what’s going on?
Well, one way is revolution.
But the violence a revolution would bring would only beget more violence. As Gandhi famously said, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”
Instead, there is another way: Let the people decide!
Rather than the people’s representatives making the decisions, as both the Supreme Court and Mitch McConnell stated, the people themselves should be the final arbiter.
The U.S. is a democratic republic, which is defined as a representative, or indirect, democracy. In an indirect democracy, the voters elect representatives who then are supposed to do the people’s bidding.
A big problem for an indirect democracy is that it often descends into an oligarchy, which is a form of government in which a small group of wealthy people rule. This is the nature of what is going on in the U.S., where a small number of wealthy people, corporations, and industries, such as the Koch Network and Wall Street, are able to create the laws and rules that the majority are forced to abide by.
As for the oligarchs, it doesn’t matter which political party is in power, as they know they can influence politicians from either side.
This control of the levers of government by the wealth class is what is known as the tyranny of the minority—and is the form of government that James Madison, the father of the U.S. Constitution, created.
The system as currently constituted in the U.S. leaves the great majority of people disenfranchised, and causes them to think there’s no point in being involved or even voting, because to them, their vote has no bearing. They feel both Republican and Democratic parties are beholden to moneyed interests.
The upshot of all this is that the U.S. is consistently at the bottom of advanced democracies on voter turnout.
People are cynical, angry, and frustrated by the entire process, and easy prey for demagogues like a Donald Trump. Trump got elected in 2016 by offering simple answers and gaining the confidence of the people who felt screwed. He won the election by being the candidate who was seen by many as coming in and destroying a broken system.
Furthermore, as one among many examples of the tyranny of the minority, take the construction of the U.S. Senate.
Because a little less than 50 percent of the population of the U.S. live in 40 states, roughly half the country has 80 percent of the votes of the Senate, while the other half of the population, living in 10 states, has 20 percent of the Senate’s votes.
This leads to major discrepancies in representation, with California, the most populous state with close to 40 million residents, having equal say with Wyoming, the least populous state, with 580,000 residents; it also leads to a vast overrepresentation of rural states, which is where the 50 percent of the population that lives in the 40 states reside.
And it also leads to the current representational imbalance: A U.S. Senate that as of today has both 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans, even though the Senate Democrats represent 41 million more Americans than the 50 Republicans.
There is a quote, often misattributed to Albert Einstein, that goes “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
It is insanity to keep expecting Congress to pass laws in the public interest, when their financial incentive is quite the opposite.
And when Congress is so unrepresentative of the majority of the American people, it also leads to doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
I see many writers and pundits stating that the citizenry needs to put more pressure on our elected representatives, to make sure they vote for the common cause.
And of course, we’re all flooded with emails from our elected representatives asking for our donations, to help them fight the good fight.
There’s nothing wrong with getting our elected representatives to vote for the right causes and bills. And if you have the money to donate to various politicians and causes, by all means, go right ahead.
But there’s also another way, and at this point in time, a better way.
It’s called direct democracy.
A direct democracy is the opposite of an indirect democracy; it is where the citizens make the determination of what’s in the best interests of the majority.
As it stands now, the electorate is blocked from making the determination of what’s in the best interests of the majority.
But we have reached the point that it’s time the people truly decide.
This is not a novel idea.
Direct democracy finds its origins in Athenian democracy, developed in the 6th century BC in the Greek city-state of Athens. Theoretically, Athenian democracy was open to all, but in practice it was only available for adult, male citizens.
Within its confines was a direct democracy, with all its legislative bodies driven by what was called Ho boulomenos, which translates as “he who wishes,” or “anyone who wishes.”
Any adult male could speak in front of the legislature—known as the assembly—initiate a lawsuit (specifically one that affects the political community), propose a law, or bring suggestions or advice to the assembly.
By the year 930 AD, Iceland had something similar, called the Allting, the assembly of all. This was a national representative assembly where decisions were made through deliberation and voting.
This approach is one that encompasses consensus decision making and majority rule. It has been utilized in Belgium, Canada, Ireland, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Poland, the United Kingdom, and in a handful of states in the U.S.
The process is similar in all regions that have applied it: Citizens are randomly selected and form a Citizens Assembly, meeting over a period of time to discuss issues pertinent to their domicile, and then make recommendations and file a report. In many cases, the recommendations become a referendum that gets voted on by the electorate.
This mechanism is how Ireland, a staunch Catholic country, amended their Constitution to legalize abortion and gay marriage
The process in Ireland began in 2016, when a Citizens Assembly formed, comprised of 99 citizen members along with a chair, who was an unelected member of government. The mandate they were given from the government was to look at a number of issues, including abortion, climate change, term limits of politicians, gender equality, and more.
Members of the Citizens Assembly were randomly selected so as to be broadly representative of Irish society; criteria to be chosen included gender, age, location, and social class. Assembly members were not paid, although expenses were covered, and the term of the assembly lasted a year.
Meetings convened about once a month, were live-streamed, and submissions from the public were invited. Since the first of the Citizens Assembly in 2016, Ireland has continued in each ensuing year to deliberate on various issues.
Each of the countries that have engaged a Citizens Assembly have used it to deliberate on issues important to the citizens of the country, and in some cases—such as climate change—the world.
There are two types of direct democracies: deliberative democracy, which is what Citizen Assemblies are an aspect of, and participatory democracy, where every citizen can participate in creating or changing laws.
The nation of Switzerland is run as a direct, participatory democracy. Since the 13th century, any Swiss citizen can propose a constitutional amendment, and if enough signatures are collected, it is put to a national vote that is open to all.
For an amendment to be added to the Swiss Constitution, it has to be affirmed by a majority of the voters, and a majority of the Swiss cantons.
In the U.S., towns in New England states decide local affairs through direct, participatory democracy, via the process of the town meeting. These town meetings are the oldest form of direct democracy in the United States and predate the founding of the country by at least a century.
Another form of participatory democracy is the citizen referendum. Twenty-six U.S. states allow for participatory democracy by virtue of the citizens referendum. In this process, if enough signatures on a petition are collected for an initiative, it is placed on the ballot and all voters get to choose whether they are for or against it.
There also are other forms of direct democracy: electronic or digital democracy, crowdsourced democracy, liquid democracy, wiki democracy, egora or intelligent democracy, open source governance, collaborative governance, emergent democracy, isocracy, and more.
I will talk more about direct democracies in the next essay.
When the USA transitions into a direct democracy, it will at last fulfill Leonard Cohen’s prophetic words, that “Democracy is Coming to the USA.”