Would American democracy work if everyone were educated about political matters? Could they then all vote equally and intelligently?

Probably not. There are more forces messing up our democracy than just being educated.

Why does democracy not work?  Money.

As the wealthy have cornered more and more of the country’s wealth, they’ve had more and more money to spend on politics. Partly, they spend it on elections. 91% of the time, the better financed candidate wins.

It’s not just that they’re influencing elections for political leanings, either. Last year, a Princeton study found the US to be an oligarchy, run by and for the wealthy elite, not a democracy. Their influence is buying them legislation that benefits them.

The more concentrated the power, such as in a committee or in a lone, powerful “speaker of the house”, the easier it is to corrupt. And though anti-corruption legislation was introduced in 2012 and a survey says 97% of voters support it, it hasn’t come to a vote.

Strong parties stop democracy from working

A large part of our problem is that we have a two-party system that no longer represents voters. A recent poll found that 44% of voters identified as independent, while 45% identified themselves and Democratic (29%) or Republican (26%). While most of those independents said they lean one way or another, they still weren’t well-represented enough by the parties to identify with them.

It might be that most of those independents are centrist on a few issues. That would mean congress might be 70-30 on that issue. But with Congress split roughly 50-50 between the parties, they have no ability to influence issues.

This article lists ten ways in which parties control your vote. Their enormous power in elections keeps other parties out of the running. We saw this graphically a few months ago when the Democratic Party changed its rules at the last minute to keep Lawrence Lessig out of their debate. The party faithfuls want to only let mainstream Democrats be heard.

Another way the parties stop democracy from working is with congressional gridlock. The parties have, over the years, become more extreme. Conservatives have left the Democratic party to join the Republicans, and liberal Republicans have joined the Democratic party. This leaves the two parties locked in philosophical disputes on many issues.

We’ll continue reasons about why our Democracy doesn’t work in the next article.