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Essay On Democracy In The United States

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The United States- Truly a Democracy?
We like to think of ourselves as a nation that is the prime example of democracy, but we love the idea that we are the embodiment of the idea itself. The problem is, how can you be the example of something you don’t practice? We are we a democracy, but why? That’s right, because the government tells us we are, time and time again. In a true democracy, it is the people who hold the power and get to choose who is in control, but such is not the case in our country. The United States is not a democracy because of factors of gerrymandering, the flaws of the electoral college, the intent of our founding fathers for us to be a republic, and our history of our racism as a nation.
In the United States, each state is given a specific number of representatives based on the state’s population. Obviously the larger …show more content…

Constitution was in 1787, they had no purpose of establishing a democracy, but every intention of starting a republic. In a republic, the voters do not directly govern themselves, rather they select representatives to govern them. In a democracy, all people get a say, and to be honest, the founding fathers didn’t want that. This was back in a time when slaves could not vote, women could not vote, and men with no property could not vote. The founders feared that if all the public got a say, passions would take place of policy, and put the whole system in disarray (Friedman 2016). You see examples of this every day in our country, because everyone and anyone with a brain has an opinion, so nothing gets accomplished anymore. In the republic they created, the voters were few. They were men interceding among public opinion and national policy. They only chose men with wealth and property, because they had lots to lose if they made mistakes. So how we call ourselves a democracy, when our roots trace all the way back to a republic that our founding fathers meant for us to

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The Electoral College exists, according to the Federalist Papers, in order to account for the opportunity of the tyranny of the majority or factions. It gives us the responsibility of choosing the President and members that are the best for us that prevents from bias opinions on who is chosen. The reason that the Constitution calls for this extra layer, rather than just providing for the direct election of the president, is that it will harm us a whole. James Madison worried about what he called "factions.” Until today, we are afraid of what Madison called, "the tyranny of the majority" – was that a faction could overgrow 50% of our population, at which point could sacrifice the rights of other citizens.

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In the last twenty years, we have had two times when the system has given a winner that wasn’t supported by the majority of voters, yet we didn’t have any in all of the 20th century. This could mean that it is getting more and more likely that the electoral college will have someone that the majority of voters didn’t vote for. All of this contributes to the idea that one vote is worthless, which is why the electoral college is antithetical to a democracy. Congressmen aren’t elected through a slate of people voted by citizens to vote for citizens, so why is the president? If the government is truly to be by the people, why can this happen?

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But frankly, the founding fathers are dead. They may not have wanted to have a full democracy, but as time goes on things change. Democracy is a system of government for the whole population. The Electoral College is similar to a republic, leaving the ultimate decision in the hands of representatives. Some say the Electoral College provides certainty to the outcome of an election, but when it comes to the popular vote, a tie would be more than unlikely.

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At the time of the founding of the United States almost all other political systems in the world were authoritarian governments in which rulers fully controlled the government. It was because of oppression by England’s monarchy that the Americans protested for a government that gave the power back to the people. It was then that the Framers of the constitution established a republic. When writing the constitution the framers established a republic not a democracy, however today many people say we have a representative democracy.

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Democracy is the essence of America, so why isn’t it the essence of the way we choose our leader? Democracy is government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them. “The Electoral College violates political equality. It favors some citizens over others,” (Document D). The purpose of a democracy is that the citizens get to choose who they want to govern them, in this case, a democratic voting system would mean that everyone’s vote is equal and everyone’s vote is valued just as much as the other, despite where you live or how many people live in your state.

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Throughout school, I have been told that democracy is a “government by the people”. However, if it is truly by the people, then why does it only take 270 of 538 electoral votes for a president to be chosen? There are more than 340 million people in the US, so how is the president chosen by the people if around 0.00000079% of the votes get to choose who the president is? Unfortunately, that is how it works in America, people go vote when it's time to cast their choice for the next president, no matter what. The only votes that matter when it comes to selecting the president are the ones that come from the electoral college.

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The first three words of the Constitution, “We the People”, establishes that America is a sovereign nation and that the people are the ones with the power in the country. It establishes that in order for the government to govern the governed must give the consent first. The concept of American democracy is centered on the idea of Popular Sovereignty. The idea of popular sovereignty is heavily based on the idea that the government is a democracy.

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Creating the U.S. Constitution and the democratic values that are associated with, the Founders had some oversight concerning democracy. The electoral college an undemocratic idea within a democratic society. The people vote and, depending on the state, the electors either vote on the outcome of the popular vote or vote what they think. That create a less democratic environment all together. By using the electoral college, the government becomes less of a direct democracy.

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