Democracy in the U.S.

Last week I was in a seminar at the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, a German think-tank closely allied with the Social Democratic party. The discussion leader, to break the ice, asked all 23 of us to introduce ourselves, say what country we're from, and rate democracy in our country and Germany on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being perfect democracy and 10 being no democracy. What an eye-opening exercise.

The others in my group come primarily from Southern and Eastern Europe (Poland, Slovakia, Belarus, Macedonia, Kosovo, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Hungary, Russia, etc.). For many, democracy is a relatively new development, and their annoyance with corruption and incompetence is tempered by excitement that things are moving in the right direction. It made me more bitter and angry at the failures of the U.S. system, which should serve as a model.

I mentioned only three failures:

1. The Electoral College, which gave Bush the presidency despite his popular-vote loss in 2000. (Of course, corruption, incompetence, and the Supreme Court added to the shame.)
2. My D.C. residence means I have no vote in Congress. No voting representative or senator. And this in the capital of the free world.
3. The current delegate system, crucial in such a close race for Democratic candidate this year, is broken, giving no say to the voters of Florida and Michigan, delegates not based on popular vote, and super-delegates completely without accountability.

I could've gone on, but my German isn't good enough to convey Jack Abramoff, gerrymandering, and the complacency of incumbents. At any rate, I think that we're not going to get the policies we want if we can't elect the politicians of our choice. Sorry to sound so snipy on Easter, but we've got a long way to go.

I gave the U.S. a 4. What do you give it?