The Democratic Party in its current form is the best evidence of true democracy.
The dangers of democracy, based upon a true understanding of the concept of democracy, come from the inevitable result in tyranny.
Yes, Americans might equate democracy and freedom…Americans might see modern democracy as government of, for and by the people…Americans might see the kind of representative democracy everyone claims the West embraces as the epitome of liberty.
But let’s not forget what democracy actually is – according to the man universally recognized as the father of modern democracy, Jean Jacques Rousseau. (The following quotes are from Rousseau’s The Social Contract, 1762)
In democracy, “Each of us places his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will; and as one we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole.”
“At once, in place of the individual person of each contracting party, this act of association produces a moral and collective body composed of as many members as there are voices in the assembly, which receives from this same act its unity, its common self, its life, and its will.”
In Rousseau’s General Will, there are no more individuals! Just a collective body – and every member of the collective body has the same will. And that is okay. No one needs to worry!
“Since the sovereign is formed entirely from the private individuals who make it up, it neither has nor could have an interest contrary to theirs. Hence, the sovereign power has no need to offer guarantee to its subjects, since it is impossible for a body to want to harm all of its members…it cannot harm any one of them in particular.”
The “Sovereign” (government, in other words) does not need to guarantee any rights to the members because (Rousseau argues) that Sovereign cannot have interests contrary to the interests of the individual members.
In my arguments today, this “government” or “Sovereign” is the acting leadership of the Democratic Party…So, because the ENTIRE Democratic Party cannot have interests contrary to its individual members, only the “general will” matters – only the will of the Democratic Leadership actually matters.
It is the Democratic Party’s leadership’s desires that dictate what the rank-and-file membership wants and needs – but more than that, it is the only true will of the Democratic Party.
“The sovereign, by the mere fact that it exists, is always all that it should be.”
In Democracy, there is no individual will. The will of everyone is the same. Even though an individual might have a private will that is contrary to or different from the general will, he has no right to that private will.
In Rousseau’s democracy, individuals also have no rights – and no freedom to be different. And in this way, the Democratic Party embodies Democracy perfectly.
“Thus, in order for the social compact to avoid being an empty formula, it tacitly entails the commitment – which alone can give force to the others – that whoever refuses to obey the general will will be forced to do so by the entire body.” (For a more complete picture at how this works, please read The Unraveling)
So while the Democratic Party is living up to its namesake, the founders actually sought to avoid this kind of tyranny in the national government as a whole (they described it as “tyranny of the majority”) by dividing up government into branches and smaller federal units and by codifying safeguards and checks on the power of government, understanding that the corrupt nature of man existed in more potency in those with power.
People want to talk about how Hitler came to power legally…and then changed all the rules (again, legally!) to maintain and increase his own power.
It is interesting that so many Americans wish to attribute this intention to Donald Trump when this is exactly what the Democratic Party has done this year – and this wasn’t even close to the first time they’ve done this…but I digress.
As I watch the Democratic Party coalesce around their new presidential candidate Kamala Harris – and as I watch those on the Right try to tell rank-and-file Democrats why they should be upset
(“Remember? None of you liked her in 2016! She did not win a single delegate in the Democratic Party primaries in 2016!”)
And as I watch the Right screaming at the rank-and-file Democrats that they have been bamboozled! ,
I am reminded that the entire country of Americans has equated Democracy with Freedom – they have equated Democracy with Choice. I mean as the Right tries to reason with Democrats, their arguments reflect this understanding.
There was no opportunity for choice (aka “freedom” - see why in The Unraveling) as the Democrats did not allow anyone (like RFK, Jr.) to nationally primary the sitting president Joseph Biden. Democrats had ZERO opportunity to choose their own party’s presidential candidate in 2024 – even before the switch up with Harris.
But…this is democracy in action, folks.
The Democratic Party is a private organization operating under its own rules. Members of the Democratic Party voluntarily joined this organization. And if the organization makes decisions that its members don’t agree with, they have the freedom to voluntarily leave the organization. This is liberty. Voluntary action requires freedom.
But do we see a mass exodus from the Democratic Party? No.
Another option for the ordinary Democrat would be to simply not vote in the manner they are expected to vote.
This would then demonstrate that the majority of Democrats do NOT agree with the decisions of their leadership. And this would actually bring the idea of democracy back around to an approximation of what most Americans think the word means.
Democrats can voice their disagreement with their party by not voting (nor voicing support for) for their party’s candidate. Are they calling out the hypocrisy themselves? No.
They do still have the liberty to vote a different way (in November) to demonstrate their opposition to the changing of their organization's rules without their consent. Because this democratic tyranny is thus far limited only to their own party.
However, the fact that rank-and-file Democrats are just going along with the switch up, without anger, without irony, in complete defense of the decisions of their leadership, indicates that Democrats, in particular, are ready and willing to transition from the vestiges of a republic into tyranny.
This is the soft despotism Alexis de Tocqueville spoke of. Rank-and-file Democrats have given up all responsibility for thinking; they have voluntarily handed over their right to a private opinion.
And if there is any hesitation whatsoever in their minds about supporting the tyrannical decisions of their party, they also subconsciously realize that their party simply knows better than they do what will make them happy. They trust The Party.
Democrats subconsciously understand that unless they agree with their overlords, they will have no freedom. That is how democracy works.
Although adopting this understanding takes a high level of cognitive dissonance, they are used to living this way. (One example of MANY: They support LGBTQ+ causes AND they support the Islamists who would torture and execute all those in the LGBTQ+ “community.”)
Democrats have, unfortunately, succumbed to the idea that one can only be free by agreeing with any and all decisions made by the Sovereign. The Sovereign -- (being, in this case, the now unelected permanent majority leadership of their party)– simply knows better than they do what will make them happy.
And what will make Democrats happy is agreeing with all the leadership’s decisions as long as that lands them on the winning side, allowing them to feel virtuous as they force those decisions and value assessments on everyone who disagrees with them.
Now, don’t get me wrong, this does lead to a desperation that they might actually end up on the LOSING side of the ACTUAL democratic process of voting in the general election (especially as it is not truly democratic due to the mechanism of the Electoral College).
They truly DO fear a win by Donald Trump, in that such a win will not only mean they can no longer claim to have the moral high ground, but that Trump could indeed impose a will different from theirs upon them.
They are, again, afraid that the other side will do to them what they have already done to themselves.
They cannot face the idea that they may have been wrong. Wrong to give up their right to a private opinion, wrong to give up their right to freedom of conscience and freedom of thought in order to be on what they THOUGHT would be the winning side.
Therefore, Democrats will do everything in their power to make sure they end up on the winning side. Including cheating, including changing definitions, including lying, including manipulation of the narrative, including violence.
I hate to say this, as I do not have any allegiance to the Republican Party either, but at least the Republicans (1) went through the motions of a primary season, and (2) are not afraid to speak out against their nominee. (And not vote for him come November.)
I think I might be able to conclude that most Republicans are not ready to hand over their private opinions to people they believe know better than they do what will make them happy. They'd rather fight about the platform and candidates than simply succumb to tyranny without voicing any opposition.
But what should be clear by now is that we are living with the effects of believing we live in a democracy.
I have been trying to get Americans to understand that political prosecutions are to be expected when we believe we live in a democracy. Lawfare is part of the democratic game. It helps to bring about the permanent majority. It helps to solidify the tyranny.
I have been trying to get Americans to understand that forcing those who disagree to go along with the narrative is the result of democracy.
The result of democracy is not freedom. It is FORCE. So once again, let’s stop trying to prop up democracy in The United States.
I mean, I think we are already living in one – a democracy, that is – but it is a tyranny of our own making.
The difficult part is trying to figure out, not how to get people to switch sides so we can be on the winning team eager to impose our side’s will on those who disagree with us, but how to throw off democracy in its entirety and hold our overlords accountable for everything they have done to reduce and eliminate our individual rights and liberties.
(And everything they have done to subvert all the constraints upon their own power.)
But we don’t want to do that. It is way too difficult. And the flip side of the individual liberties coin is individual responsibility…and too many Americans have absolutely no desire to take individual responsibility for anything, let alone their personal liberty and what they do with it.
So, at least the rank-and-file Democrats are being honest with us (if not to themselves). They will defend this tyranny over themselves (and the rest of us) to their last breath because natural law has not changed. They innately recognize that if they ever admit they made a mistake, they would have to take responsibility for that mistake.
It is ever so much easier to agree with their leaders, no matter what they decide. They have so completely given up their right to a private opinion that they truly believe that the opinion they are told to have was theirs in the first place.
Lastly, you have a chance to join this conversation tomorrow night (July 30 at 8PM EDT) - Just CLICK HERE.
Well said Dorothy! People believe they want democracy when truly they want a republic, which they are steadily losing