The Pros And Cons Of American Democracy

Democracy. It is what gives Americans pride. It is why Americans say the pledge of allegiance, put their hands on their heart during the national anthem, and it is why the American flag is displayed proudly and deliberately by many Americans around the country. So it may come as a shock that in a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2007, 69% of Americans did not know the name of the vice president. The fact is that most people do not care about politics. This leads to a lack of knowledge, and that is what causes Americans to blindly advocate a democratic America when in fact America may not be as democratic as they think. To be precise, America for the most part follows a democratic process, but is not completely democratic, and this paper will show the several shortcomings in American democracy.
In order to make a decision on …show more content…
This requirement is here to ensure that citizens and lawmakers make informed political decisions. In our modern technological era, citizens have a variety of media available to them to deliver political information that early political thinkers could only have dreamed about, from broadcast news to printed articles to the internet. Even our methods of gathering and recording data are advanced, and it provides lawmakers with broad poll data that certainly helps in the citizen-oriented political decision making process (Marshall 29). One thing that is concerning though is that the information presented through these media sources are backed by monetary funds. In the United States on average, it costs about $8 million for a person to campaign for a seat in the Senate (Bradley). It can be interpreted that because this figure is so high, only those who are wealthy or those who can easily generate funds from the wealthy can run for office. So if only the wealthy can run for office, the only political information we are presented with comes from the wealthy