Health Of American Democracy Essay Example For Students

Health Of American Democracy Essay 4/13/04Essay No.1The United States does not have a legitimate democracy. Our societyhas gotten too far from the original idea behind democracy: One man, Onevote. In this essay I will discuss what constitutes a direct democracy asopposed to a representative democracy, the electoral collage, and the U.S. two-party system. Here in America we have a representative democracy. We vote forrepresentatives to make decisions for us. In other types of free governmentlike direct democracies, people vote directly on most issues, includingtheir leadership. Here in America an overwhelming amount of the publiccould vote for one candidate and the other guy could still win theelection. In fact in our last election the president, elect, did not earnthe popular vote. In America we elect electors for each state to vote for us. This poolof electors we call the electoral collage. Some states split their electorsvotes to go to different parties. In a state that doesnt split theirvotes, like Washington, if more than half of the electors votes aredemocrats, all of their votes are counted for the democratic candidate andvice versa. So if 49% of a state is of one party, (the losing party inthat state) they will have zero say in who the next president will be. Every four years we all have to make a decision, actually two. Should I vote this term, and do I vote for the democrat or the republican?The two candidates with a chance to win are always representing a tinypercent of the people, and the real question for most of us is: whatcandidate represents the lesser of the two evils. In other democracies whena person goes to vote for president, they can choose between manycandidates. Not only that but there vote actually counts. I believe the system that once made us all free is now being used asa tool to control a population. We have no real say in what happens here. People dont vote because their vote really doesnt mean anything. Peoplewant to believe they can make a difference, even if the obvious fact is,that they cannot.