Is democracy on the ballot?

Democracy is on the ballot. Democracy is on the ballot. Democracy is on the ballot. Okay. I'm sick of this copy-paste saying. Of course, overuse of a statement is insufficient to invalidate it. Perhaps I need to answer a question. Is democracy on the ballot?

Let me start with something you have probably already heard. The United States is not a democracy. We are a republic.

I should probably go a little beyond what conservatives keep saying since this is a little shallow. There is nothing that we vote on at the federal level. We vote on who states send to represent them. We vote on who our states name as electors for presidential elections. Technically speaking, these are state elections.

I should also mention that the federal government has various laws in place for elections. It's undeniable that our country maintains democratic values, but we are not truly a democracy.

Like a lot of political statements, the idea of democracy being on the ballot has an undeniable element of truth. Republicans couldn't handle election results, so they tried to overturn an election. I am in agreement that the actions of January 6 were inexcusable and an attack on democratic elements of our country. I also agree that elections right now have implications for democracy.

When voters insist that democracy is on the ballot, they are strongly implying two things. The first is that the Republicans maintain anti-democratic values. I can definitely see that. They are also implying that Democrats are pro-democracy. This completely contradicts what I have seen from the Democrats.

When George W. Bush was elected, Democrats felt that they had a path to overturn the election results in Florida. With how tight the presidential race was, overturning the results in Florida could effectively be used to overturn the results of the presidential election. The approach taken by the Democrats was not to ensure accuracy, but to find a way to skew results favorably for their party. For example, they specifically targeted precincts for the recount that they thought would help their numbers.

We saw something similar with the election of Donald Trump. Democrats were furious about the election results and came up with a plan. A number of electors voted against Hillary Clinton in an attempt to sway Trump's electors to withhold their votes for Trump. The idea was to keep Trump from reaching a majority, which would allow the House of Representatives to select the president. This was the second straight Republican (although it's a bit of a stretch to refer to Trump as a Republican) president who faced an attempt by Democrats to overturn election results.

After Trump won, pretty much all liberal states tried to use their position of power to completely remove Trump's name from ballots. These plans were ultimately derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic. There's no question that removing opposition from ballots would have had a more substantial impact on voters casting their votes than ID laws, which makes this the biggest attempt at voter suppression that I have ever seen.

The Democrats have also been pushing for a switch to the popular vote. There are problems with this push, but I want to focus on what I just wrote. The Democrats are currently looking for a way to manipulate the popular vote. Combining the popular vote with manipulation of the popular vote is dangerous. We can't allow this to happen.

This is not just presidential elections. Here in Washington, Christine Gregoire initially lost her gubernatorial race to Dino Rossi. She managed to get a recount. She lost again. She forced another recount. This reversed the election outcome. Now that she won one out of three counts, we could no longer question the outcome.

There is a lot of overlap between the two parties. I would even say that they are more alike than different. They both actively look for ways to cheat the system for the sake of their own power. Both parties have undermined democracy and tried to overturn elections. The anti-democratic actions of the Republicans bother me. Despite my concerns, I do not view a fear of losing democracy to be a valid reason to vote for another political party that embraces anti-democratic values. Much like there is no party of science (Democrats claim the moniker even though they reject science when it doesn't match their platform - see their views on genetically modified organisms), there is no party fighting for democracy.

Going back to the original question, is democracy on the ballot? Technically speaking, no. There is no option on the ballot to vote for democracy.