After a white mob who believes in the idea of Trump besieged the U.S. Capitol, donning Trump flags and escorted by police as if they were children on a school trip through the halls, Mike Pence declared “Freedom wins.” Joe Biden called the event “an assault on the citadel of liberty.” Liberal pundits summarized the moment as a “breath of democracy.” Oppositional forces saw this as yet another threat to democracy. All agreed this thing called democracy was (and have been during Trump's reign) under siege.

My argument is that the United States, or its forerunner colonies, was never a democracy nor can it become one for this reason: if democracy is a “government by the people,” where sovereign power is vested in “the people” who exercise power directly or by elected official,” that system of governance requires rational people and most of the 330 million people in the United States are irrational, including their elected officials. By rational, I mean a person or people able to think clearly, sensibly, and logically. The implication is that it doesn’t matter who becomes the president, nor which party is in power, for there’s a feedback loop where incoming regimes usually do their best to eviscerate the body of work belonging to the previous administration, regardless if that some of that work benefits “the people.”  

The most basic premise of U.S. democracy (whatever that ultimately means) is the principle of majority rule. That rule is irrational. A majority rule means 50.1 percent will always win, making the 49.9 losers in a zero-sum game for power--and everything else that flows from it. The majority rule principle is illogical because it always works against “the people,” serving only certain people--an otherwise tyranny of the majority! The majority principle also means that if you live in a majority Republican party state, up to 49.9 percent of the votes will NEVER count, as if they were never casted. So much for the “one person : one vote” mantra. Likewise, in a Democratic party state, the results will be the same. What about states flipping? Usually, districts or counties flip rather than whole states, and this explains why so much state effort is (re)invested in (re)drawing districts maps for the maintenance majorities. The occurrence of “flipping,” is relatively rare and never widespread, keeping intact the majority rule principle.

The term democracy derives from the Greek demokratia (“popular government”), itself from demos (“common people,” originally district or division) and kratos (“rule, strength”), in the sense of “rule or government by,” but more generally power over, might, rule, sway, and authority. Though we are led to believe U.S. democracy has its origins in “Western” and therefore Greek notions of democracy, the late Marxist scholar C. L. R. James, in a 1956 article entitled “Every Cook Can Govern: A Study of Democracy in Ancient Greece Its Meaning for Today,” argued, “the most striking thing about Greek Democracy was that the administration... was organized upon the basis of what is known as sortition, or, more easily, selection by lot. Most Greek officials were chosen by a method which amounted to putting names into a hat and appointing the ones whose names came out.” He went on to say “that was precisely the guiding principle of Greek Democracy. And this form of government is the government under which flourished the greatest civilization the world has ever known.”

Some have criticized James for his view of Grecian society, particularly his understanding of the major city-state of Athens and the role of slavery in this “home” of democracy, and we can fault him for his naive pronouncement (“the greatest civilization the world has ever known”)--and on both counts rightfully so. Some background, however, is important here. Surrounded by mountainous terrain and the sea, agrarian and nomadic life characterized early Grecian history and shaped its politics, economy, and society. Grecian society consisted of on-citizens—enslaved individuals, lower class women, and children nineteen years of age and under—and citizens of low and high ranking.  The monarch, nobles, and lords formed the high echelons of the citizenry, while men twenty years of age and older occupied the lower ranks. Enslaved labor, agrarianism, fishing, and maritime activities sustained an economy structured around the core activities of city-states—centers of cultural and military life—and were augmented rural production of goods, foodstuff, and crafts by the enslaved and other non-citizens. 

For much of ancient Greece’s history, at times up to one-half of its population consisted of enslaved persons, including war captives. So-called Athenian democracy was built on and supported by its enslaved population, which almost doubled the number of inhabitants. The citizen class of Athens formed a fixed minority, complemented by a preponderance of peasants and chattel slavery. The conditions for rich and poor citizens to participate in democratic politics in Athens were laid by enslaved laborers: these laborers produced surplus that precluded elite citizenry from working and allowed even poor citizenry to push back against elite pressures on their freedoms because they rarely did manual labor full-time, relying also on said surplus. In some ways, democracy in Athens rested on the growth of slavery, much like U.S. democracy for its white male citizens (up until the late 19th - early 20th century) depended on the growth of chattel enslavement. That capitalism used slavery then discarded it suggests democracy has been deployed in similar but not the same way. The key difference is slavery was a visceral practice that could be experienced; democracy is an idea lodged in belief and in the irrational.