Aspiring To Democracy, Dealing With a Dying Party

THE UNITED STATES was never intended to be a democracy. In fact, until the twentieth century, the word "democracy" carried a negative cannotation, akin to mob rule. Brainwashing by the powerful elite few. The founders enshrined in the constitution of 1787 a an oligarchial, plutocratic system of republican rule, governance by the wealthy, educated elite, the "better sort", as Madison put it, who would govern and represent the interests of the remaining ninety nine percent, the "lesser sort", the poorly educated rabble whom Madison and other founders considered unqualified and unable to govern themselves. Within five years of the constitution's installment, Madison regretted it; it had become obvious by 1792 that the better sort had no intention of representing the interests and well being of the lesser sort, but instead, only their own. And so it remains today, despite women's suffrage and the abolition of slavery and land requirements for voting. A plutocratic republic. Rule by the corporate elite, who have supplanted the landed elite, who choose our political candidates and fund their election. Hence, our political, economic, and legal systems favoring the wealthy at the expense of us, the modern lesser sort. Neither did the founders intend for political parties to exist, which they saw as divisive, but within the presidency of George Washington political parties had come into existence, consisting of those who supported Washington's vison of a powerful central government, and those who preferred a more decentralized system. With two political parties, when they are roughly equal in power and popularity, the government enjoys a reasonable level of stability, unless the two parties are either too similar, in which case they are meaningless and represent no one, or too ideologically divergent, in which case lurks the constant possibility of internal national conflict. Two widely divergent parties with unequal strength, in which one of them is in decline, presents a dangerous situation. It should not be surprising in that event that the party in decline will seek to strengthen and perpetuate itself by any means necessary, including voter suppression and subversion of democarcy, resorting to authoritarian government to keep itself in power in minority rule. That is exactly what is happening now in the United States. Hillary Clinton got three million more votes than Donald Trump, and Joe Biden beat Trump by more than seven million votes. In seven of the last eight pesidential elections, Democrats have won the popular vote. Republican governores, state legislatures, and national congress, Senate and House members represent forty five million fewer constituents than do Democrats, currently. Ninety percent of registered Republicans are white, in a country in which only sixty percnt of the population is white. Ninety percent of Republicans are Christian. In the nation as a whole, barely more than fifty percent identify as Christian. White Christian conservatives, as a percentage of the general pupulation, is a minority, and declining. Republicans on average are much older than Democrats. The millennial generation and those younger are mainly non religious and progressive. The Republican party is a shrinking party of angry old white men, seventy percent of whom falsely claim that the election of 2020 was stolen from Trump, and seventy percent of whom believe that Trump's Capitol insurrection was justified, a valiant attempt to right a great wrong. A dying party, crying out in despair, trying to steal power, passing laws in Republican controlled states making it harder to vote, in what will be a failed attempt to prevent the rise of ethnic minority power and the interests of the Democratic party. Conservative, white, Christian America resents the gaining of equaliy of minorities, and the loss of the traditional patriarcal society. They resent the encroachment of ethnic minorities and religious diversity into American society. And they reesnt their own impending political death, and are not finished trying to fight back and destory those who are facilitating their political demise.