As the upcoming elections take over the news cycle, some of my favorite American myths are beginning to circulate again! This week, it’s that the USA is “The World’s Oldest Democracy”. It’s a pretty bold claim when history is at our fingertips!
Really, an argument could be made that this country has never even been a democracy. You might also say that it once was, but is no longer. You could get into technicalities involving Greece or Iceland or whatever, but that isn’t really necessary. All you have to do is notice that the definitive right in this democracy is the right to vote and check to see how long we’ve all had that right. Pretty simple.
The only problem is, the US actively kept that right from a great many of its citizens until the Voting Rights Act of 1965. That would mean this country has only been a democracy for 59 years at the time of this writing. Not very old.
Also, the Supreme Court didn’t actually outlaw state and local voter suppression like poll taxes until 1966, making this democracy only 58 years old. Getting younger by the second…
…Also, the Supreme Court struck down key provisions of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, making way for the return of previously illegal methods of voter suppression. So, if we’re going by our own “inalienable” definition of rights, then we once had a democracy for just about 47 years, but, unfortunately it’s been gone for eleven.
Maybe the real question is whether or not this country is even structurally capable of becoming its own definition of a democracy. The answer begins with the census.
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