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A democracy in name only [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-03-30

Sadly, our country has only ever been a democracy in name only. Americans like being called the leaders of the free world, the beacon of democracy, the shinning light on the hill and the oldest surviving democracy, the fame, the glory and the prestige have satisfied them to date, to hold on to a semblance of democracy for decades.

But let’s not fool ourselves, we have never been a real democracy, we have never lived up to the ideals we pretend to espouse, we have never really fought for human rights and equality, we have fought for power and glory. No true democracy could bear witness to the abject abuses of power that go on in the United States.

No minority in the US is truly surprised by what’s going on right now, for we have been the victims of such abuses for decades or centuries. Today the veil has been ripped away and our country stands bare faced, for once devoid of all its superficial make up for all the world to see and lord are we ugly.

While we’ve spent years “installing” democracy in other usually poorer countries, we have never once taken the time to finish installing said democracy in our own country. The fact that such a thing as the “electoral college” exists to this day is proof enough of that. Every vote count is but a sham in our country, for decades we have silenced millions of voices through the supercherie of the electoral college.

This failure to install and root democracy on our own soil has led us where we are today, on the brink and in places right inside an authoritarian regime. It is without shame that a fraction of our citizens proudly walks the streets of the land of the free waving the flags of fascism and bigotry. It is without shame that they declare their allegiance to revert back to a time where minorities had even fewer rights.

The reason they feel emboldened to do so, is because we have failed to put in guardrails to safeguard our democracy and they have rightly interpreted this lack of action to mean they have the support of a good chunk of not only our population but of our ruling class.

Because while we have enjoyed the prestige that comes with being the leader of the free world, we have always found the tenets of democracy itself to be an obstacle to our true desires, to be the top dictator of this planet. One cannot after all, be an authoritarian state and a democracy at the same time, but we have tried. Democracy is inconvenient to our ambitions.

So today, we abandon all pretense of democracy, we silence the bells of liberty, cover the statue of liberty, topple lady justice, and spit on our constitution as we hand over our country to the worst designed caricature of a leader imaginable; a two-bit con man with delusions of grandeur, who has not a single redeeming quality.

And those of us who believed in democracy who worked tirelessly to see that dream become a reality are left holding its shredded promises within the corners of our souls, hoping against all odds, that a time will come and we shall be able to patch our country’s tattered remnants into a real democracy where we actively practice the values we’ve spent centuries preaching to others.

#ThePoet

Muriel Vieux – March 31st, 2025, ©All rights reserved

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