Here is a test, dear readers, on democracy. Answer the following questions, true or false, scoring 1 point for true and 0 points for false:
(a) America is the greatest democracy in the world
(b) America is the only true democracy in the world
(c) America should export democracy to the rest of the world, by force if necessary, because of its manifest destiny
(d) America is a democracy by the grace of god, and it is god's plan that America convert the rest of the world to democracy
Honesty system here of course, being HuffPo. How many did you score, and how does that correlate with your red state/blue state status? The people who score the most points win, right?
Sorry, only those who scored no points got the test right.
Trouble is, because most Americans seem to agree, unquestioningly, with at least the first two points, they are susceptible to arguments from presidents - irrespective of whether Kennedy or Bush - that put the last two points as reasons for going to war. (see for example Thomas Zengotita's recent blog 'Liberal Imperialism Finds a Story Line' and Suzanne Nossel '10 Reasons Why A Community of Democracies Can't Be Our Big Foreign Policy Idea')
And there is another problem - as discussion after discussion on HuffPo shows - while progressives know that the American electoral system is dysfunctional, they keep flailing around trying to find solutions which amount to reinventing the wheel and doing it badly.
Here is a hint - while America did have the world's best democracy in the eighteenth century, the rest of the world has moved on since then. Large numbers of democracies all over the world have long had features such as preferential voting (that is a better kind of 'instant run off'), proportional representation, control over political funding, declaration of financial interests, independent bodies to draw up electoral boundaries and maintain voter registration and supervise the election process (including ensuring consistent ballot papers across the country, and what happens at polling booths on election day) and count votes. Other countries have paper voting and hold on to those records so they can be checked at any time. No other country (to my knowledge) has, or would want, an electoral college. Many countries gave women the vote before America did. Most hold elections on weekends, some have compulsory attendance at the polling booth (though once there you can choose not to vote) and make sure that the elderly and the sick and the shift workers have proper access to polling places.
So here is a friendly suggestion to Dick Cheney, next time he is giving a speech somewhere in the world about democracy - find out what the locals are doing, they will probably have some democracy America could import. And to all my fellow progressives - have a look around the world, and use the best of what is available out there - you will be amazed at the possibilities. I mean all of us, progressives and conservatives, want a fair political system, a true democracy, right?