I swear if I hear some liberal politician or pundit use the expression “our democracy” again I’m going to scream.

The whole idea of the US as a democracy is a joke. I don’t know exactly which cabal of Wall Street bankers, spooks and military/industrial denizens makes policy but it sure ain’t “we the people”. All of the pomp and ceremony of voting is to create the illusion that the US government is responsive to the will of the electorate. Meanwhile, we’re a plutocracy and have been for some time. Cory Doctorow says—“Our plutocratic, monopolized, unequal society is the worst of both worlds. Because companies are so big, they abuse us with impunity – and they are able to suborn the state to help them do it.”

And don’t even get me started on American foreign policy. “Our democracy”. Hah! The US maintains the largest, most powerful empire in history yet liberals use terms like “liberal democracy” and “international rules-based order” to describe this arrangement. These euphemisms might fool the American people but the rest of the world understands all to well what the score is. 

If you look solely at the raw data of the US power structure around the world (where the weapons are going, where the resources are going, where the money is and isn’t going, where the diplomats are and aren’t going, etc), you can’t tell which political party controls the White House or Congress. And Americans don’t get to vote on any of that stuff. The behavior of the American empire and the policies that maintain it are never on the ballot. 

The present embrace of Nazi’s in Ukraine and the history of US support of right-wing, business friendly governments in the Third World belies any sort of genuflection to democracy. Meanwhile, liberals are cool with all of this a long as appearances are maintained. I think that is one of the real reasons that they loath Trump, for showing the true face of American imperialism.

Ask an anti-imperialist what’s the worst thing Trump did and they’ll talk about actual US aggression in places like Yemen, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq, or the embrace of jailing or assassinating critics or foreign leaders, like Julian Assange and Qasem Soleimani. Ask a Democrat what’s the worst thing Trump did and they’ll talk about pretend nonsense like Russian collusion and insurrection.

Meanwhile, the liberal guardians of “our democracy” have turned into the worst sort of authoritarians, embracing propaganda and censorship in their crusade against “disinformation”. All of the shrieking about not respecting the will of the voters and questioning the results of the 2020 election is pretty rich when they spent the entirety of the Trump presidency waging the Russia-gate coup. The hypocrisy is stunning.

It appears that “our democracy” means “their democracy”. Liberals deserve to rule the country and anything else is fascism.