Using the five ideals of Wikipedia’s definition of the American dream, today I want to go deeper into the first one: Democracy. I think most people have somewhere in the past studied this, but just in case I will hit the highlights again. The concept originated with the Greeks in the 5th century BC. A random group of 500 citizens were enlisted to perform one year of civic duty.

The American form of democracy is a modification of that practice. We don’t randomly select all of our government. We elect a select few to represent us amongst a a group of others that have been elected. This is a ’representative’ form of democracy. In addition, we don’t have one government but a cartel of member states at the federal level.

I am not an expert in this, but I do believe that states have some flexibility in terms of how they are comprised with respect to democracy. In fact, the more local the government the more diverse the composition of size and function and reach. My state essentially mirrors the federal makeup in the three bodies of executive, legislative and judicial branches.

If you go a level down to the county you start to see some differences. For instance, there is no executive position. The legislative and executive functions are combined into on body, the county commission. Yes There are judges but there is also a sheriff. This is a new wrinkle in the power dynamic. Because they are directly elected by the citizens of the county they have assumed more power than perceived higher authority, like state police for example.

Alright, you all can study up on your specific governments. I am going to move on. In order to have the American Dream we need democracy. What does that mean? Well, to me it means that the people have ultimate control of the government. It also means that we can change representatives if we think that they are not performing a job in a way that we approve.

Let us think about this for a minute. A lot of people talk a good game about having the power but I really want to put it into perspective. Unless you are a sociopath, firing people is difficult. It makes a person evaluate themselves and consider the consequences for the other person. I choose to think about what is best for the organization and the individual forcing them to go somewhere where they can thrive rather than underperforming at the current post.

To be honest, most people have never really done the job. They want to talk tough about what they believe and think should happen, but they haven’t actually done the hardest part. That is looking in the eyes and actually doing the work. Electing politicians is a small microcosm of that. They don’t actually have the heart to do the job. Hence, we very rarely elect a new politician over an incumbent. We are highly swayed by party propaganda convincing us that the evil we know is better than the evil we don’t.

To carry this to the extreme, who really believes that politicians are representing our point of view as average citizens? They literally can do things that are illegal for citizens like insider trading and prosecution immunity. Let us assume that my representatives were 100% in lock step with my beliefs, they are still two out of 100 or one out of 435 at the federal level. Even at the state level it is one out of 60 or one out of 30 depending one which side of the congress they are on.

The reality of making meaningful change by me electing a new government is statistically impossible. In the best possible scenario given above, my representative equals slightly over three percent of the total vote. Maybe the American Dream is more about the illusion of control via democracy? Maybe people act differently or more free when they believe that they have more control than they actually have?

I am not going to go into whether there is corruption, I simply don’t have any facts. I will simply say that the money to fund campaigns has got to be tremendous and it doesn’t come without strings attached. Political parties and other donors expect something as a result of their support. At the very least, they can be gatekeepers for who gets to run.

End Your Programming Routine: So where does this leave us? The demented adaptation of democracy from the original vision of the founders still exists. I have always contended that the best environment to perform is a benevolent dictatorship. That leaves a person to operate without interference in conditions where someone else is dealing with the politics. I think that I might argue that democracy is a bit idealistic as a cornerstone of the American Dream. I think I have made the case today that we don’t have much control anyway.