Mischaracterisation of American Democracy’s Progress.

Bappaditya Mukherjee your recent post is in my opinion a display of ignorance and a mischaracterisation of American Democracy’s Progress. There are not enough characters permitted in the comment section beneath your post for me to articulate in a thorough granulated a response to illustrate the points of my opinion. My opinion being that you have no clue or understanding of what you are talking about. While you are entitled to your own opinion you are not entitled to your own facts. For reader ease I have cut pasted your posts below and articulated my response below.

The criticism that America’s failure to elect a woman of colour as president is an indictment of racial and gender injustice fundamentally misinterprets both the nature of the U.S. political system and the electorate’s diverse set of priorities. To suggest that the absence of a specific identity in the Oval Office points to some deep-seated national prejudice misreads both the principles of representative democracy and the power of voters’ choices. American democracy is shaped not by top-down mandates but by the voices of millions, each with the agency to prioritize the qualities they value most in a candidate.

The U.S. political system is structured as a representative democracy where every election reflects the preferences of the people, not the dictates of a fixed agenda. This was no less illustrated when the Harris campaign focussed on the fixed agenda of demonising the now President-Elect Trump as opposed to the things that mattered to the citizens of by far the most multi-cultural and diverse countries in the world. It also behoves me to point out that you mentioned the disdain of excessive cash being used to promote candidates, yet the Harris campaign spent three times more than that of the trump one. Voters went to the polls using their free will, intelligence and personal circumstances to weigh policy, experience, and integrity, looking beyond singular identity markers alone. To assume that the lack of a woman of colour as president equates to anything related to prejudice dismisses this freedom and discounts the possibility that many Americans may prioritise other traits over a candidate’s identity.

Moreover, claims that the U.S. systematically excludes women and minorities from senior roles ignore a track record of significant accomplishments and increasing diversity in government. Kamala Harris, a woman of Black and South Asian heritage, having just lost her bid to become President, currently still holds the second-highest office in America, while Congress has welcomed a record number of women and people of colour. As a sign of further progress, President-elect Trump’s recent choice of a woman to the most senior role in the White House shows that pathways to power are open, not closed, for women. These actions reflect real inclusion and advancement, contradicting any notion that structural discrimination categorically blocks marginalised groups from powerful roles.

American elections have a long history of rewarding merit and vision over surface-level identity. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama broke barriers, the latter going on to win the presidency twice in resounding victories. Clinton, though she didn’t win, came closer to the presidency than any woman before, with her campaign loss attributed to voters’ views on policy and trust than to gender alone. History shows that many capable candidates from all backgrounds have run and lost, their defeat often tied to the complexities of party alignment and public sentiment. Reducing these dynamics to matters of race and gender alone disregards the democratic process and voter autonomy.

It’s also worth noting that no other advanced democracy has elected a woman of colour as head of state. Nations often celebrated for progressive policies such as France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom also lack women of colour in their highest office. Are these countries, too, failures of democracy?

To hold the U.S. to a unique standard implies that democracy is only valid when it yields identity-based outcomes, which in my opinion is an asinine notion that undermines true equality. If diversity alone defines democracy’s worth, we ignore the broader, more vital goal: ensuring equal opportunity for all citizens.

In is essence, democracy means freedom to choose, to disagree, and to hold differing values. Those who critique American voters’ choices as an unwillingness to abandon the status quo fail to grasp and respect the bedrock of democracy , which is individual agency.

Dismissing voters’ decisions based on these assumptions not only overlooks the complexities of American elections but also exhibits a troubling disregard for the right to vote according to one’s beliefs, interests, and conscience.

Ultimately, it is anyone’s right to critique, question, and scrutinise, but to assume that democracy’s validity hinges on identity-based outcomes is in my opinion the oxymoronic musings of a person with a rather narrow understanding of democracy as a whole.

Carl Cagliarini

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