The White House and a stop sign in Washington, D.C., the United States, August 4, 2022. /Xinhua
Editor's note: Keith Lamb is an independent international relations analyst who focuses on China's socialist development and global inequality. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.
China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has just released an incisive white paper entitled "The State of Democracy in the United States: 2022" which, using data primarily from Western sources, reveals that the U.S. is merely a "paper democracy" that lacks any meaningful governance on behalf of its population. In the international realm, the U.S.' failing democratic model is then used for the interests of the rich and U.S. hegemony to violate true international democracy, trample on international law, commit human rights atrocities, and violate global sovereignty.
Looking at the domestic front, the report shows how political infighting is preventing the U.S. government from even enacting laws. This means even if the will was there reforms needed to provide the basic democratic foundations of a state, like public healthcare, infrastructure, and education are impossible to enact.
This dire situation is accentuated by U.S.-capital monopolizing the democratic electoral process. The report noted that the midterm elections, which cost a record $16.7 billion and dwarfed the "GNP of more than 70 countries," show U.S. democracy to be merely the "monologue of the wealthy."
As such, the connection between government policy and the profit motive of capital, which tramples over people-centered development, is ensured domestically and internationally. All the while the corporate media does their utmost to keep the U.S. public, who are losing faith with their democracy, ignorant and confused.
One prominent example given by the report is the control of media narrative during the COVID-19 pandemic. A viral video of Jordon Trishton Walker, a senior executive at Pfizer, said that Pfizer was exploring plans to "mutate" the coronavirus for the aim of profit extraction. YouTube removed the video immediately.
The usurpation of democracy by capital and a deep state was also revealed by the "Twitter files" which demonstrated how much U.S. government agencies work to blacklist the exposure of unpopular accounts.
Internationally, the U.S. media constantly advertises war in the name of democracy and human rights. This buttresses the hegemony of a small wealthy elite while extracting huge profits from the U.S. population by diverting taxes to the military-industrial complex. In the Global South, resource plunder further brings in mega profits.
All the while U.S.-led sanctions and invasions have led to an enormous loss of life in the Global South while the innocent Western soldiers, who sign up in good faith to honor their motherlands, are betrayed. They believe they are fighting for democracy and human rights, but in fact, they are forced to oppose their ideals.
A protester is seen in front of Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, California, the United States, March 18, 2023. Anti-war organizations held rallies in the run-up to the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. /Xinhua
The inciting of confrontation and conflict in the name of democracy and the lack of democratic progress in the U.S., which cannot be separated from the development of real socialism, the force which seeks to work for the majority, would be impossible without a massive propaganda campaign controlling, distracting, and confusing society.
The solid becomes fluid and the fluid becomes solid as the deficiencies of U.S. democracy are redirected inwards and outwards. Objective identity, the topic encompassed within the U.S. culture war, becomes whatever one decides it is and debate surrounding divisive absurdity is defined as democracy.
Simultaneously, the interpretation of democracy, which is heavily subjective, as its interpretation and implementation depend on each state's own material and historical conditions, becomes rigidly defined in the interests of U.S. hegemonic ambitions that uses its fixed definition of democracy, which isn't even working domestically, as a pretext for human rights violations and the trampling of international democracy.
The U.S. must wake up and understand that when it comes to democracy, the U.S. does not have a monopoly on its definition. It is an ideal that needs inter-civilizational dialogue, not war to accomplish. Democracy, in the broader sense, is about pragmatically working for the interests of all of society and not just a narrow interest group. Its fruits can be seen in the flourishing of states cooperating peacefully with one another.
Consequently, democracy requires us to never put the cart before the horse. The method for achieving democracy, whether that be through Western mass elections or China's whole-process people's democracy, is secondary. The ultimate measure of a democracy is whether it produces democratic outcomes for all.
If one system makes endless war and ensures the disintegration of domestic living standards while another builds global peace through infrastructure development and enriches its citizens, then it is clear that democratically speaking the second example surpasses the first.
When it comes to the perceptions of U.S. citizens towards China, this distinction is pertinent because the U.S. deep state and capital incessantly work to construct China as a threat to be "democratized" in order to save the Chinese people. For this aim, the U.S. surrounds China with military infrastructure and meddles in China's sovereignty. These actions could lead to yet more undemocratic violent events, which reflect the intention of a small elite that undemocratically control the U.S. governing system.
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