Democracy Definition Essay

Democracy means rule of the people. The two most common forms of democracy are direct and representative democracy. With direct democracy, anyone can take part in making a decision. Examples of this are town meetings or referendums. The other, better known form of democracy is a representative democracy. People elect representatives to make decisions or laws for them with representative democracies. States do this for each level of government, with the exceptions of small localities and towns. All of this being said, the United States tends to lean towards being a republic as well. We elect people who in turn make decisions for us. Constitutionally, the US is not really a straight, true democracy. Beginning with the Constitution's adoption, America has been a Republic.The dominant trend over the past few centuries have morphed it into a democracy as well, a representative democracy, also known as a democratic republic. The creation of the Constitution itself was partly a reaction against democracy, yet we have one now.

After our country defeated the British, a centralized, national government was seen by George Washington and his colleagues not as a method of extending freedom and the right to vote, but as a way of keeping control in the hands of rich. They wrote several anti-democratic provisions into the U.S. Constitution. The Senate was not to be elected directly by the people; rather Senators were to be appointed by state legislatures.The President is elected not by majority vote but by the Electoral College. If Presidential elections were democratic, George Bush would not have become President in the 2000 Presidential election against Al Gore who actually won the popular vote.
The House is supposed to be the democratic institution, but in fact, manipulation such as gerrymandering creates difficult situations.

An example was in the 2012 Presidential election, where the "democratic" House received many more Democratic votes, but Republicans had 2/3 of the House seats. The Senate on the other hand, is deliberately anti-democratic. This is so they can balance and check the House. (The Supreme Court, in this sense, is unlike the other branches of government, for it has no power here.)

The myth of democracy is obliterated by a form of minority rule. The United States is not a democracy, but an oligarchy or plutocracy. Only on the local level is democracy alive and well, and this is an uprising problem. On the state and national levels, a small elite group rules, and democracy, the rule of the people, is merely a façade. Democracy is also only suitable paired with a free economy; it can only exist, in substance, in an economy of

ideas.