A campaign sign along Spring Garden St. (above) featuring prominent figures Kamala Harris, Barack Obama, and Martin Luther King Jr. The latter of which, notably was anti-imperialist and spoke in opposition to the U.S. war machine.
For those of us who have spent the past four months paying attention to political discourse (or rather, those of us with a phone number or address in these United States) we have certainly heard that "democracy is on the ballot" in this year's presidential election. For those of us with memories dating as far as 2020, you may recall that democracy, then, was also on the ballot. And once you realize the same can be said of 2016, you start to recognize a pattern of framing.
The point of the matter at hand is not that newly-elected president Donald Trump is some democracy-killing fascist anomaly in American politics, because he isn't. In actuality, Donald Trump and his outwardly facing platforms of racism and misogyny, and his affinity for autocracy and the silencing of his political enemies is largely a result of the concealed platforms of the same elements within his party, and the Democratic party.
Democracy wasn't on the ballot this year because it can't be, our political system won't allow it. Democracy left the room when third party candidates were systematically kept from mainstream political platforms by the moving of the goalposts by the Federal Election Commission. Democracy disappeared when the Democratic party conspired to keep its own partymember, Bernie Sanders, from winning the primary in 2016. These are just recent examples if you're paying attention. The barring of chattel slaves from voting, the barring of non-white Americans from voting, the barring of women from voting, the barring non-native english speakers from voting... all notably anti-democratic practices in this western stronghold of freedom and democracy. The longstanding institution of the electoral college, a process by which 'electors' rather than American citizens select the president of the United States, is a mainstay in the prevention of democracy here.
A Harris/Walz winning ticket would have no sooner secured the institution of democracy than a Trump/Vance ticket would tear it apart. And as the Democrats and their broadcasting apparatuses lick their wounds and try to point fingers at different sectors of the public for their loss, they will not look inward. They'll say that we don't care about democracy despite the fact that they weren't promising it. They'll say that Black men, Latinos, or the Muslim community failed to deliver them the presidency, while for months they propped up a campaign platform that promised nothing other than to be 'better than the other guy.'
Vice President Harris at a 2024 campaign rally in Romulus, Michigan. "If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking,” she replied to members of the audience who sought for her to address the ongoing genocide in the Middle East.
Vice President Harris, an incumbent of the current administration stood by as her commander-in-chief failed to live up to campaign promises, turned a blind eye to the ballooning immigration emergencies across the country and among other things, presided over more than $20 billion being spent to support Israel since October 2023 while nearly 50 thousand Palestinians have been slaughtered in front of the world's eyes.
This election was never about democracy.
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