Democracy in America?

Abstract

It is officially known that democracy in the United States of America became the main idea more than two hundred years old. For a long time, it was considered the most progressive and standard for the whole world. But now people are increasingly asking questions about whether there really is a democracy in America. Is United States is really a democratic state? This article examines various aspects of the democratic structure of the state, including theoretical, historical and legal, as well as the current political situation in the United States. Based on the analysis of the US electoral legislation and the work of the American electoral system, it is concluded that, on the one hand, the citizens of the country are not guaranteed the exercise of their active and passive electoral rights. And on the other hand, key laws and political decisions are made without relying on the opinion of the citizens of the country, which does not allow us to classify such a way of governing the country as unambiguously democratic. The presidential election-2020, with its numerous violations and mass riots, was particularly criticized. To a large extent, this situation in the American electoral system is explained by fact, that the orientation of The Founding Fathers of the United States was not to ensure democratic governance of the country. They argued for strengthen American federalism, which reflected the complexity and archaic nature of the electoral system. Its allows us to conclude that neither formallyconstitutionally, nor in fact, the United States is not a democracy. The system of power that has historically developed in the United States is most accurately described by the term “oligarchy”, which generates a number of both political and constitutional-legal consequences.