Liberal Democracy

2020 elections primaries going on and so far, many controversies have happened in American politics. In about three weeks, billionaire Mike Bloomberg was able to rise in the polls among top runners who have been campaigning for nearly a year now, by spending billions, until a disastrous debate performance. A move that showed how money can impact the election in the States; the underlying impact of money in American politics was revealed to the world.

Problems with the American democracy, however, is not just about money. The Democratic party efforts going on right now to remove Bernie Sanders from the scene is a telltale of the situation. What happened covertly in 2016 leading to nomination of Hilary Clinton as the democratic runner, is now being displayed overtly by convincing all candidates out of the competition one after the other to support the pro-establishment candidate, Joe Biden. This was after the controversies over Iowa primary elections and the warnings figures like Tulsi Gabbard had earlier raised about electronic voting systems.[1]

Nevertheless, American democracy’s worst crisis is the electoral college structure. Questions were raised on it in 2016, when Donald Trump managed to win the election despite winning less popular votes. At the time Hilary Clinton became one of the most outspoken opponents to the electoral system, along with majority of Americans who prefer a popular vote for election of president[2]. They are demanding a change in the constitution[3] with many seeing the electoral college to be ‘the biggest threat to American democracy.’[4]

Human Rights

American history is marked with institutionalized violations of human rights from the very beginning to the modern era. From lynching and segregation to oppression of movements such as Black Panthers and Black Wall Street, to Black Lives Matter and I’m Choking moves are routine violations of American society.

African-Americans are not the only race suffering from discrimination; Hispanics and Latinos are other targets who have suffered in recent decade due to anti-immigration policies of Barack Obama and Donald Trump as well as white supremacist, right-wing extremism raising in recent years. But prior to the African Americans, Latinos or Asians, Indian Americans have been the victims of violations from the day one. They have been brutally killed and assassinated and even the promised lands have never been given to them. This manifest destiny of Native Americans is shared by Canadian First Nations as well. After centuries, they are still fighting for their own rights and lands.

European people are not enjoying a much better condition. It is more than a year and half that Yellow Vest protesters are on the streets of Paris and other cities across France and are welcomed by police brutality and iron fist and government has ignored their demands. Similar experiences were shared by Roma people in France, protesting students in the UK, etc.

Free Market Economy

Much of the positive mythology around the free market collapsed in 2008, when the great depression happened and left many people homeless or bankrupt. Even regardless of the embarrassing fiasco over the way heads of banks dealt with the bonuses and bailouts, the consequences and outcomes of the Wall Street capitalism dominating western societies is painful. Millions of people in the biggest economy of the world are living paycheck to paycheck, thousands of students begin to experience debt from the age of 8, their families being unable to pay their lunch debts, and 50 million people are still in debt for tuition in tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

One in three Americans are financially fragile, unable to cope with emergency expenses in a short timeframe[5] while 27% of adults would need to borrow or sell something to pay for an unexpected expense of $400. [6] 140 Million Americans cannot afford to pay for medical prescriptions; and one quarter of adults have no retirement savings, and skipped necessary medical care in 2018 because they were unable to afford the cost.[7]