American democracy (like any other democracy) has its share of democratic and anti-democratic forces (people, groupings) in the executive, legislature, and judiciary. In anti-democratic countries such as China, there are the same forces operating both within government and in the population.
In recent years and during other periods (e.g., the McCarthy era) the anti-democratic forces have had the upper hand, and seem capable of mostly silencing the more democratic forces.
The American founding fathers (such as Thomas Jefferson) saw that it would be a constant struggle to preserve democracy.
What the founding fathers may not have foreseen is how complicated it would be for American democracy and freedoms when America is a superpower. Democratic principles have been described more as a luxury rather than a right.
The catch is that a superpower is almost always on a war footing. That’s unavoidable. And one of the main reasons why America is hated by despots (of all stripes) is its example of freedom and openness which the despots don’t want to see sprouting up in their own country.
The pendulum in American politics has swung too far toward the anti-democratic extreme. The shear viciousness of attacks on WikiLeaks (extra-judicial cutting off funds via Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal, removal from Amazon web hosting, removal from its DNS domain name URL) should send chills up American spines. Who will be next? When will they come for your rights? And consider how strong the anti-democratic forces are right now to get away with such tactics.
Don’t believe that just because WikiLeaks-like sites are springing up, that American doesn’t have a serious internal problem with the quality of its democracy.
America and Americans need all the support that can muster to defend the quality of American democratic institutions and principles.
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