The election is just the first step for democracy

🎶 Post soundtrack 🎶

During this election, people have rallied behind the idea of saving democracy — let’s use this collective energy and frustration to push for a real democracy, one in which all Americans have an equal say. We must stop shying away from doing what is right because it is politically challenging. I’m tired of political pragmatism in the face of clear injustice.

America’s government is predicated on representing its people. Nilay Patel at The Verge puts it well:

[T]he radical founding principle of the United States of America is the idea that the government’s authority to make laws and solve collective action problems comes from the consent of the governed.

All citizens must receive equal representation within the Republic, or it is failed. To have a representative democracy, the American people must all be able to vote for their representatives, and their vote must be meaningful. With the Electoral College, with the unbalanced House, with our non-voting territories, currently many Americans have no true voice in our supposed democracy.

Equalizing representation

Now, presidential elections are decided by a bare handful of states. It’s bad that presidential candidates can ignore hundreds of millions of voters across the US because they don’t live in swing states. These voters *know* they are disenfranchised, which discourages voter turnout.

It is surely injustice for a small number of voters (and states) to invalidate the will of the majority of voters. The Electoral College must be abolished, either outright or in practice; Presidents must be selected by popular vote. The Electoral College is rooted in racism and binds America to minority rule.

US citizens from Puerto Rico, Guam, and other territories* deserve to vote in presidential elections, too. It is wrong to deny these Americans a vote simply because they may upset the status quo; if enfranchising them changes the political balance, that would mean millions of Americans have lacked representation for decades. (Spoilers: they have.) We made EC votes happen for Washington D.C., so if we can’t get rid of the Electoral College then we should at least ensure territories receive Electors. Representation must be rooted in justice, not fears about how the currently disenfranchised will vote.

We also need to expand the House of Representatives. The Senate is where all states receive equal power / seats; in the House, representatives are intended to stand for approximately equal numbers of people, but because the number of reps has been arbitrarily capped, it represents people disproportionately. The Delaware representative speaks for nearly 1 million people, whereas the two Montana representatives each represent about 540,000 people (source). The 690k people from Washington D.C. also deserve voting representation in both House and Senate, as do US citizens who live in the territories.

All Americans must be equally represented

Why haven’t we addressed this clear inequity? Republicans oppose it, disenfranchising millions of American citizens, because they don’t believe in democracy — and they don’t consider anyone besides themselves to be “real Americans.”

Republicans have appointed themselves arbiters of Americanness, using it as cover to claim oppression so they can keep us shackled to unrepresentative minority rule. In this election, Republicans have even spoken of stripping citizenship from naturalized citizens and removing birthright citizenship 😱🤬 They claim that we must assuage their fears of cultural change since they represent “true” America. (See: the ten zillion articles telling liberals we need to listen to conservatives and zero the other way 🙄)

This is all bullshit.

Presenting some citizens as “more American than others” is a scam to suppress the vote of naturalized citizens and people who live in territories and urban areas — to be clear, that’s most Americans. This framing idolizes a particular White, Christian, patriarchal ideal: an ideology that is losing, kept in power by stealing votes from Black and brown people, Native Americans, and immigrants.*

An immigrant who’s granted citizenship today is just as American as I am, regardless of where they were born or when they moved here — and deserves the same rights. Whatever cultural practices immigrants bring become part of American culture. American culture is “yes and” — it can encompass elements of all without demanding assimilation. We are not the Borg. Americanness is an idea, not a specific cultural tradition: to me, real American culture is inclusive and ever-changing, constantly becoming.

Our diverse heritage and cultural traditions are what distinguish America from more homogeneous places. Across even the contiguous US there are many regional cultures — all equally American. We don’t all hold the same beliefs, or follow the same cultural practices — nor should we. We are one and many; e pluribus unum. A patchwork quilt of peoples, each as vital to the whole as the next. And we all deserve an equal vote.

America’s history of imperfection

In the Wall Street Journal (!), reporters Andrew Restuccia and Rebecca Ballhaus chronicle a series of changes at the Smithsonian that downplay the history of the struggle for rights in America. But this *is* the story of America: a nation failing to live up to its stated ideals but being pushed again and again by its people to do better.

America has always failed to fulfill its promises, back to its very founding — but over the nation’s history, the people have dragged the elite, step by excruciating step, towards equality. The powers that be may seek to deny us our rights in the name of the status quo, but enshrined in the very Pledge of Allegiance is recognition that justice is the right of every American citizen.

Let’s make it so.

The notion that [the] future is a commons, and one that is best cared for in the present is both fantastically thrilling but also nerve wracking.
Stewardship of the future is one of those things that’s non-deferrable.
You carry the yoke, now, today. You build it now, today.

— mwiya (@mwiyas) March 22, 2021

 

Further reading:

Rocking the Boat by Denny

How to be a good ancestor by Jeremy

After Election Day by Hamilton Nolan

 

See also:

DC Statehood Now