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True Democracy refers to system through which the citizens elect their political leaders in free and fair elections (Stoker, 2016). The United States does not have a true democracy since the elected representatives make the government’s decisions instead of the people themselves which means that it functions as a representative democracy. Turnout is another significant obstacle in hindering democracy in the US, especially with the poor people who are not able to avail themselves on the voting day. Besides, the candidate with the most votes and popularity loses since they nominate representatives body, the Electoral College, and to who are responsible for choosing a presidential candidate on behalf of the voters. These factors contribute to the fact that there is no true democratic system in the United States since it is only available in the books.

The representatives who are firstly elected by the people for the people tend to make decisions first without discussing and considering the people’s views and decisions. In the US, this form of electing government representatives is considered as reciprocity between the representatives and voters (Drazen & Ozbay, 2016). Therefore, this is not a true democracy since it implies that the voters are eligible to determine their representatives but those representatives decide who should and most significantly, who cannot vote in the next elections. They do this by voter suppression, and this is very easy for politicians to enforce laws and practices that make voting difficult for some people. For example, Republicans have favored the rule that was passed by the former Republican president George W Bush in 2002 on strict voters ID laws named, “Help America Vote Act” which has highly discouraged the minority people, the elderly and the poor people in the society who are democratic voters (Kropf, 2016). The features do not entail in the democratic characteristics.

The other factor that does not encourage true democracy in the US is the turnout of voters during voting, and this is not an easy task for most especially poor people who cannot afford to take time off work or find transportation to the voting polls (Highton, 2017). They have to work, and this does not make them part of the electoral process and most votes are considered spoilt votes. Therefore, it leads to the ones who were to win-lose instead of winning despite having the most popularity amongst the people. For example, according to the PEW Research Centre, only 55.7% of voters in the USA were able to vote in the 2016 presidential election. This issue of voters’ turnout should be addressed seriously in the attempt to achieve true democracy.

In 2016 elections, Donald Trump became a victor in the election despite him losing the popular vote to his main opponent Hillary Clinton who attained almost three million votes. The United States electoral system do not meet the elementary conditioning (Jürgen, 2017). People should elect representatives by some kind of principle of majority voting meaning that the candidates who attain the majority of all votes wins. The oversimplified but confusing truth is that the people of United States do not elect their president directly but rather choose members of a body who thereafter elect a an eligible candidate for the presidential position on behalf of the voters.

In conclusion, by these examples and just a few to mention reasons, it is clear that the great United States of America is not genuinely democratic since true democracy is met and addressed in all factors and to the satisfaction of the people. The elected representatives should be elected for the people by the people and not people’s views should not be suppressed instead. The 2016 elections brought this issue to light, and this system was classified as flawed, and the need for amendments is high.

Reference

Drazen, A., & Ozbay, E. (2016). Does’ Being Chosen’to Lead Induce Non-Selfish Behavior? Experimental Evidence on Reciprocity.

Highton, B. (2017). Voter identification laws and turnout in the United States. Annual Review of Political Science, 20, 149-167.

Jürgen, H. (2017). Constitutional democracy: a paradoxical union of contradictory principles?. In Theoretical and Empirical Studies of Rights (pp. 29-44). Routledge.

Kropf, M. E. (2016). The Federal Part of the Institution. In Institutions and the Right to Vote in America (pp. 45-63). Palgrave Macmillan, New York.

Stoker, G. (2016). Why politics matters: Making democracy work. Macmillan International Higher Education.