The Fall of American Democracy in 2020

Tribal divides, an outdated electoral college voting in a winner-takes-all system and significant declines in trust in Government and the democratic process have really shown their true colors in 2020. If this isn’t the fall of democracy, I don’t know what is.

A two party state with such tribal warfare and a social media machine that amplifies civil unrest means America is disrupting itself. Capitalism is broken and democracy isn’t an institution we can be proud of any longer in America.

Let’s be honest here. These aren’t institutions that are working. Even in 2020 we witnessed how the CDC and FDA aren’t organizations that do their jobs particularly well, given a public health crisis. A President that makes a mockery of democracy and polls isn’t helping America’s stability.

Nebraska and Maine are the only states that don’t play by winner-take-all rules under the Electoral College. That the Electoral College system is broken and highly dysfunctional in 2020 has shown everything that’s wrong in America. It may be too much for a generation to fix, with flagrant economic inequality, racism and tribal politics at their worst in recent history.

Mike Bloomberg spent millions on Florida and elsewhere, and it didn’t matter. Red and Blue states are so consistent in their voting traditions, the institution of Democracy looks like a two-party fixed system, not what one considers a true and open democracy of many parties that can adequately represent the interests of the common people, the middle class and minorities.

A President that makes “legal challenges” against mail-in ballots during a pandemic isn’t a person that’s following democratic process or rule of law in the constitution. The United States of America is showing significant signs of a lack of trust in democracy, the Government that is, frankly, at an all-time low.

The pandemic has accelerated wealth inequality and racial inequality at rates we’ve never seen before in our lifetimes.

Maine and Nebraska are the only states that don’t play by the winner-take-all rules under the Electoral College. With many states showing very close races, the winner-takes-all system no longer makes sense, as it puts the entire weight of democracy on a few swing states that can be manipulated as we saw with the Miami Latin-X populations.

There’s something very wrong with American capitalism and democracy as we know it. Facebook has fueled division, tribal warfare between blue and red states, and actually made racial inequality worse in recent years while raking in advertising dollars. America also profits from the health crisis where pharma companies and the ultra rich profit from the stock market’s volatility.

What we are witnessing in America with a close vote and lawsuits between outdated parties is the civil unrest of a system that hasn’t kept up with the times.

In 2020 we’ve witnessed Twitter and Facebook censorship. We’ve witnessed an election process that has shown America’s tribal divisions on full display to a world that trusts America less than ever before. Here we have a society of division that profits from the suffering of its own people.

Here we have a country with institutions that are broken for the common person, for minorities, for women and for the hope of adequate leadership for future generations and their concerns.

American Democracy has failed and American capitalism is severely sick. Most Americans just don’t like to admit it. Can we trust America to revamp capitalism, democracy and its monopolistic technology companies? Not really, and that only guarantees the decline of American society.

All U.S. states should adopt what Maine and Nebraska do. Traditionally, the winner of a state’s popular vote in the race for the White House wins all of the electoral votes it has to offer. But Maine and Nebraska have both adopted laws that distribute their electoral votes in part by the statewide popular vote winner and in part by who gets more votes in each of their congressional districts. In the current system votes don’t really matter if you live in a red or blue state.

Democracy doesn’t work in its current form and we all know it. That’s why participation rates are so low, even in “historic” turnouts like 2020 which are hotly contested fake debates about the future of America. The reality is the democratic process of free market capitalism no longer steers the future of America or American society.

This election has demonstrated that the fall of Democracy has already occurred in the United States. Wealth and racial inequality, tribal warfare, monopoly capitalism and a winner-takes-all two-party state democracy are all obvious symptoms of this.

America as a country is in decline, and it’s not only sad to witness, it demonstrates we are entering a global period in humanity’s history where the rule of law itself is breaking down.