Enjoyed the Health-Care Debate? We'll Keep Chasing Our Tails Until We Start Taking American Democracy Seriously

If you talk about campaign finance reform or the clean elections model, or decry how corrupt the relationship between lobbyists and lawmakers has become, people's eyes glaze over. It's boring.

When you point out that Americans would never for a second accept a choice of only two flavors of ice cream, and ask why in the world we can let these two not-terribly-responsive parties have a stranglehold on our government and call ourselves a democracy -- if you suggest we might consider a parliamentary system, so people who don't fit neatly into one of two "big tents" can be represented -- you obviously belong to the fringe.

Instant runoff voting to eliminate the 3rd-party "spoiler" problem? That's not a serious policy proposal. Restoring voting rights for felons who've served their debt to society? That's right up there with 'Free Mumia!' as a rallying cry for most mainstream progressives. And if you want to see people give you a funny look, as if you're not quite right in the head, tell them that it'd really take a Constitutional Amendment getting rid of the ridiculous notion of "corporate personhood" to establish a true democracy in the U.S.

You can write a blog post decrying the fact that Olympia Snowe, representing just 650,000 people, can block health-care reform for 300 million Americans, but seriously suggesting we do something about a legislature in which 40 senators representing a 3rd of the population routinely block legislation for the remaining two-thirds makes you a dreamer. We accept the abuse of democracy -- the shadow filibuster -- with merely a grumble because That's How the Senate Works (and shut up!).

You can get people to pay attention to the ridiculous cracks in our electoral system -- the unauditable electronic voting systems, the voter caging, the sheer folly of having elections run by partisan secretaries of state, etc. -- between July and November of every 4th year, during the presidential race. At other times, they really don't care.

Whether it's out of an abiding belief that, while flawed, ours is nevertheless a more or less functional democracy, or a matter of avoiding the ugly truth that it isn't, most are content not to think too much about these issues.

Then on a fairly regular basis, a problem like our catastrophic rip-off of a health-care system comes along. And everybody wrings their hands and bemoans the fact that we're getting another bizarre, muddied approach to reform that doesn't shake up the corporatocracy too much. In this case, that comes despite the fact that the public believes the government should guarantee decent health-care for all, most are willing to pay a little higher taxes for it and basically everyone hates the insurance industry.

And yet, they often can't seem to connect the many ways in which our system fails the test of a truly representative democracy to the legislative abominations we get year after year from Washington.

So basically we end up playing wack-a-mole, being frustrated on issue after issue while ignoring the underlying causes of Washington's dysfunction. And tomorrow we'll do it all over again.

After all the fun we've had with health-care, aren't you looking forward to the debate over financial reform? I know I am.