Why the United States Is Not a Democracy

Reina Cervantes

CORE-260

Fisk University

December 7, 2015

    Why the United States is Not a Democracy

What all Americans want to hear is that the people hold the power in this country, and that the people are the ones who make America the great country it is today. The American ideals are that every citizen has the right to free and fair elections in which they are equally represented, laws that apply equally to all citizens, and that human rights of all inhabitants are being protected. Unfortunately, this cannot be further from the truth. The Founding Fathers of the United States envisioned a Democracy but recently it has taken a corruptive turn.

A Democracy, as defined by the Huffington Post, is “a system of government that gives power to the people”. Power to the people would mean that the people are equally represented in corruption-free presidential elections no matter their wealth. However, a 2014 study named Testing Theories of American Politics showed that the common American had “little to no influence over the political decisions made in government”. According to the authors of the study, Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, scholars from Princeton University, when a policy does not have support from the rich, there is only an 18 percent chance that it will be implemented. In comparison, when a policy holds major support from the rich, there is a 45 percent chance that it will be implemented.

 While average American citizens are paying high taxes on pretty much everything, including their hard-earned money, they are being cheated out of their right to fair elections by the elite. In addition, the study results showed that “the preferences of ordinary citizens were measured more directly than [..] other independent variables, yet they are estimated to have the least effect”. The “other independent variables” were other groups that were tested to see which had the most influence on government policies. The concerns of average citizens were more strongly studied, they showed to be of least concern to the government. Although the strategies used in the study are far from perfect and have yet to be improved, coming from reputable University scholars, the study holds a high level of credibility.

Furthermore, citizens not being equally represented in elections is not the only major issue threatening American Democracy. The Huffington Post clarifies that laws are not being applied equally to all citizens as a Democracy implies. Consequently, not only are citizens not being given an equal right to choose laws or who implements them, they are also being held to higher standards than people with more power. Recent tragedies demonstrate the way laws are adhered to only by some but not everyone.  

 Just last year Mark Brown, although unarmed, was shot by a police officer in Missouri. Eric Garner, another unarmed man and father of six, was killed by asphyxiation in the hands of a police officer in New York. And yet another brutal murder that happened in 2014 was that of John Crawford who was killed inside a Walmart after the BB gun he was holding was mistaken for a real gun. Walmart actually sold the BB gun and the only excuse the police officer had was that it looked like a real one. That sounds like a pretty bad excuse when you have gone through years of training and when your whole job is to protect people, not to put them in danger, much less shoot them. According to the Huffington Post, although these scenes are horrible and hard to believe, the scariest part is that these three cases, and many more not mentioned, have one thing in common- the murderer did not go to jail.