Why The US Is Not A Democracy

People often assume that capitalism and democracy are synonyms, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Why is that? And what prevents the United States from being the democracy it claims to be?

Why The US Is Not A Democracy – Second Thought

New video every Friday!

Citations and Further Reading:

Bar graph source

Princeton study

Representative government

James Madison quote

Liquid democracy

Democracy at work

Follow and Support Second Thought!
CashApp: $JTChapman

Watch More Second Thought:

About Second Thought:
Second Thought is a channel devoted to education and analysis of current events from a Leftist perspective. Welcome!

[jorsh]

The New F Word is a banging series, definitely worth getting the curiosity stream bundle to watch it

[Parker]

All you have to know to figure out U.S is not a democracy is the fact that there's been 5 times in the history of U.S elections where a candidate wins the popular vote but does not become president

[Glenn_Ratcliffe]

Aldous Huxley: "The perfect dictatorship would have the appearance of democracy, a prison without walls in which the prisoners would not dream of escape. A system of slavery where, through consumption and entertainment, slaves would love their servitude."

[brianshivak]

Can't be a democracy when politicians are "bought"

[oodeuce]

“Your vote only helps pick which part of the wealthy population has a say”. This statement hit different

[NoahRamseysGhost]

As someone who has worked in a worker cooperative, i can say that electing the boss was one of the greatest parts of the job. it meant they wouldn’t be shitty to us, we’re held accountable, and always managed the needs of the workers and actually listened to our grievances.

[masterofalltrades_]

The United States is also a one-party state but, with typical American extravagance, they have two of them. - Julius Nyerere

[ladyalicent]

As Vsauce once said, a true democracy would be one where the people who make the decisions that govern us are not only selected completely at random, but their positions are also not permanent. People selected at random would sit down at a table and discuss world issues and how to solve them, and the next day it would be a different group of people. As the years go on, many people you know or even you yourself may have the honour of being selected! That way, the interests of everyone are as equal and fair as possible.

[leondonald]

Since Biden took office, there seem to have been more unfavorable results in America. These results include effects on the markets, such as price declines and sharp increases in inflation, as well as bank failures. I wonder if the sudden increase in interest rates will help value investors or if it would be wiser to stay away from the stock and financial markets for the time being.

[RIPKabosu]

I'm saving to leave the US for a quality education. Being raised during no child left behind, I found very early on that the adults in my life have no clue what is going on inside schools. Then we have secretaries of education that never go into low income schools, and others who wish to privatize all education. It's disgusting.

[masterofalltrades]

"The function of a bourgeois democracy is to secure the consent of the masses to their own exploitation and oppression."

[venetiaastrop]

It's honestly incredibly refreshing to watch a video where these observations are laid out in such a clear and concise way because these are not groundbreaking concepts AT ALL if you think about them for even a second, but the current system works to make us question even the most obvious answers and discount them as "impossible" or not even worth trying, but why not? Why does the current political system try so hard to mock, belittle and keep down these other ideas? This aversion to questioning something so significant as the very system that runs our lives, is a result of deliberate actions by the US political system (and many other similar systems, but the US is definitely a special case in a lot of ways) in their goal to confuse the majority of people, keeping them just content enough to find the idea of change too much effort to be worth trying.

[barrocaspaula]

Found your channel yeaterday. It's great. I'd binge watch it if i didn't have to work.

[ichaukan]

"Feeding the poor is never going to be as profitable as overproducing for the wealthy." completely sums up the basis of Consumer-Capitalism and sounds exactly like one of the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition.

[atropatene]

Fun story about people not being able to govern themselves: I went to a toddler museum with my toddler. In the museum, they had made a small road, where the toddlers could ride tricycles. There was also a train track, with an overpass. One child could operate the train, two children to operate the bars for the overpass, and there were three tricycles. There were many toddlers there, and most of them didn't know any of the other kids.

My toddler didn't want to leave the area, so we spent quite some time there. You saw that whenever a parent was intervening, the children would do what said parent said. But at some moments, all the parents were the shutting up and watching, and the toddlers figured everything out by themselves. A child would be operating the train, and two others would queue on one side of the train, patiently waiting for their turn. The train operator would get out, let someone else have a turn and either queue for the train again or go do something else. Same for the tricycles. There was a an area where children were waiting for their turn. Other children would stop there, give their bike to someone else and then either requeue or go to one of the other activities. Whenever a child was taking too long to give someone else a turn, that child would be blocked from doing what they were doing by the queueing toddlers.

Freaking toddlers can do it. Why would they think adults can't.

[fromtheblonx]

I like your videos mate. On a bit of a binge here so keep em coming! Thank you🙏

[Michon]

As a person from Europe I think that the first think you have to change is the way elections work because you don't have 2nd turn of elections which leads to having only 2 parties in the parlament

[jeffs]

It's funny how people can think we are a Democracy of any kind, or even a Republic when we only have one of two parties to choose from, both that only represent the same Capitalist class.

[clementyip]

"The perfect dictatorship is a camouflaged democracy. It may not seem to be a dictatorship, but it has all of the characteristics of a dictatorship; the perpetuation, not of one person, but of an irremovable party, a party that allows sufficient space for criticism, provided such criticism serves to maintain the appearance of a democratic party, but which suppresses by all means, including the worst, whatever criticism may threaten its perpetuation in power." - Mario Vargas Llosa, 1991

[thefuckedupgod]

Absolutely great video. Would've also loved to hear your take about other aspects of democracy like the influence of this system on social life and people's mindsets and behavior within society.