From Jonathan Bernstein:
The march toward civil rights also demonstrates why the vote is absolutely essential. The Democrats’ choice to move toward civil rights wasn’t just about Northern politicians gaining a conscience as they looked at white supremacy in the South. What mattered overall was black citizens moving north and starting to vote in their new cities.
What that shows is that the vote is what really matters — more, in some ways, than whether any particular vote is enough to swing an election (although it certainly helped that the black vote was often seen as a swing vote). Politicians try to represent their districts. But without the vote, constituents are largely invisible to their elected officials. Of course, it also mattered that some of those voters began electing black politicians, who then fought within the Democratic Party for what their constituents wanted — for themselves, and for other black citizens.
Democratic processes don’t always work in the U.S. But without the vote — and without robust political parties — they don’t have a chance.
Democratic processes don’t always work in the U.S. But without the vote — and without robust political parties — they don’t have a chance.
I agree with the importance of voting, but “don’t always work” is quite the understatement.
When corporations and Wall Street have move influence than voters, that’s a failure of democracy.
When the last two Republican presidents took office when their opponents won more votes, I’d say that’s a major failure of democracy, too. When one side has to win by a landslide and the other wins when it’s close, that’s a failure of democracy. When rural whites have greater representation in the Senate than all other demographics, that’s a failure of democracy. When the ruling party welcomes Russian help, that’s a failure of democracy.
And it is only getting worse. If it even happens, a mild ‘blue wave” will make little difference. Like Obama’s hope and change, it is written on the wind.
Above all, when half of the country defends these aspects of our system as the best ways and explicitly argues against democracy, that’s a failure of democracy. All from the same people who not so long ago sang the virtues of democracy and insisted that we spread it to the rest of the world.