A short note: Has America been a democracy, still?

Senator Bernie Sanders claimed that America is no longer a democracy. "The United States is moving toward an oligarchic form of society.” This statement actually turns out to be true:

1. Money has been influencing American politics for decades and decades. American system needs to be fixed, but every time, the proposals to reform the institutions got sidelined by the oligarchs and big money. Every year 500,000 people go bankrupt for not being able to pay off their medical debts, with millions of people struggling under this privatised health care. This is a moral crisis and sadly it is what's undergoing in the richest and most successful economy as we know it. The second crisis is massacres and shootings which could happen to schools and children, there have been tears and bereavement every time. But nothing sensible was done to control gun use and make it safe for the citizens. We all know big money is standing in our way. Two debacles demonstrate how American institutions are no longer capable of delivering necessary reforms to tackle social issues until those evolve into moral crises.

2. If political parties are the drivers of democracy. The Democratic Party is in the middle of a leadership crisis, and the Republican Party has become a cultist troop gathering around Trump. Both major political parties are brain-dead.

3. Two-thirds of the surveyed Americans believe that democracy no longer works in the interest of working people, but the billionaires, and the powerful (according to a survey in 2020). (updated in 2024, over 70% of Americans claimed American democracy is under threat

4. Biden during the Primary debate said that he would put out an initiative to federally fund all the elections. We now know those are just empty words. Everyone knows the problems, but no one among them has a clue how to stop big money from getting into politics.

5. Americans have long ceased to vote for candidates over policies, actually, any presidential elections are likely to end before they start with this level of polarisation. Trump was not elected this time around for being preferred over the policies, he won on racism, xenophobia, and misogyny, those deep-rooted sentiments in society. American democracy, if still exists, no longer works to select the best people, the best platform for the country.

6. The billionaires and oligarchs are getting less patient. Mike Bloomberg launched his campaign in 2016 in the Democratic camp. He cut a charismatic, but dark and dangerous figure. And in 2020, Elon Musk has directly meddled in the election. And he certainly plays a role in Trump's path to victory. It conjures up a very bleak prospect of oligarchs trying to fill in government positions directly, rather than lobbying from a distance as in the past.

7. With two non-consecutive terms of Trump and 4 years of an interval with Biden, things have been going disastrous. Normally once a dictator comes to power, it takes a few years, a few months for democracy to collapse, for its fragility. How American democracy could sustain more than one decade with Trump's presidency looming large, it is so questionable . The coming 4 years will certainly be a knockout for American democracy.

In the past, I heard of American malaise, but I think what Bernie said is an overstatement, now it seems not...