I am very proud of India being the largest democratic country in the world. A democratic government, chosen by a majority of its citizens, seems to be the only logical and fair way to rule a country. When I came to the US, I felt comfortable to know that the US is also a democratic country where all political leaders are elected by voting just like it was in India. However, over the years I have realized that American “democracy” is not what I would consider an ideal form of governing. Now the situation has reached a point where it seems inevitable that this democracy will soon end. My first reason to doubt it from the very beginning was the fact that it is a two-party system.

Although thirdparty candidates have run in many presidential elections, everyone knows that such a candidate will not win; such parties come and go and are put together only with elections in mind. There are also two major parties in some countries like the UK and Spain but there are many smaller parties which continue their existence and carry various degrees of influence. Political views cannot be binary; in fact, there is a huge number of people in the US who are labelled “independent” and end up deciding election results. I remember my efforts to engage a fellow American graduate student into a political discussion a few months after coming to the US. He responded, “You are too new to this country to understand that it is not political parties but big corporations which run the country”.

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He was right. Another oddity in the US election is the so-called electoral college. Election results are not determined by counting individual votes (popular votes) but rather votes by “electors” from each state. The number of electors in each state is equal in number to its congressional delegation (representatives and senators). A majority of popular votes in each state gives the candidate all electoral votes in that state in a “winner takes all” scheme. This was written into the US constitution to ensure that presidents are not elected by a handful of populous states like New York and California, but opponents argue that it is not consistent with the democratic principle of “one person, one vote”. It remains a topic of continuous debate and several attempts to amend it have failed. There are fundamental problems with any democracy. Ancient Greek philosopher Plato was against the concept of democracy because of disparity in people’s intelligence. In the democratic process a vote by an expert counts the same as a vote by an incompetent person. Excessive freedom in democracy gives an opportunity of governance to the “bullies and brutes” who are motivated by self-interest and do not care for the good of the country. A related concern is that a fair election can be held only if the population of a society is at a similar socio-economic level.

If there is a large gap between the rich and poor, it is inevitable that the voice of the poor will drown because of their lack of education, money and influence. The US has been slowly but surely changing into such a society of haves and have nots. Now a large fraction of the population does not even have the intellectual capacity to appreciate the political issues involved and the relative merits of various candidates.

When I first came to the US, I was impressed to learn that a key goal in American foreign policy is to protect and even establish democracies in other countries by supporting regime changes against threats from communism, terrorism and other disruptive forces. The Korean war, Vietnam war, Iraq war and now the war in Ukraine all show this resolve. America has sacrificed hundreds of thousands of soldiers and spent billions and billions of dollars. I realized over the years that it is a façade.

The main purpose of the US government, under pressure from the defence industry, is to sell weapons to all these countries and keep the economy going. A sad realization. The influence of foreign money and corruption certainly casts doubt on the patriotism and fairness of politicians. Just in the past few years, we have heard about Donald Trump’s collusion with the Russians, Joe Biden’s compromised policies because of money coming from China and endless speculation about how George Soros is influencing the outcome of various elections with his money.

We cannot even know the truth because of partisan views in the mainstream media possibly influenced by foreign money. No one in the mainstream media talks about one other key reason for not trusting politicians: their addiction to drugs, alcohol and sex. Many political leaders in Washington DC including senators, congressmen and even presidents have these addictions. President George Bush and Richard Nixon were reportedly heavy drinkers and Bill Clinton is infamous for his escapades with Monica Lewinski, not to mention his association with Jeffry Epstein. Even John Kennedy was known for his extramarital affairs.

Allegations of sexual assault have surfaced against Donald Trump and Joe Biden in recent years. Married Ted Kennedy escaped prison time even after it was clear that his female companion Mary Jo Kopechne drowned because of his negligence in the Chappaquiddick accident. Decisions and comments made by these leaders often do not make any sense and go against common sense. Just watch Vice President Kamala Harris speak on any occasion. The recent discovery of cocaine in the White House certainly increases the suspicion of drug use there. One wonders how these people, who lack judgment to conduct their own lives in a decent manner, can make difficult decisions which determine the welfare of the entire country.

The final reason for my conviction that American democracy is approaching an end is the potential interference by Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the 2024 election. We already had two presidential elections in 2016 and 2020 which divided the country into hyper partisan adversarial groups, each group accusing the other of stealing the election. Many people are concerned that AI will play a major role in altering the election results in 2024.

AI can do that by creating fictitious voters, falsifying vote counts, spreading misinformation and other deceptions. If that happens, common people will completely lose confidence not only in the election process but democracy itself. That will be the day when American democracy finally collapses. I do not know how it will end. In many countries, a military coup leads to military dictatorship but that is unlikely in the US.

Equally unlikely is a people’s revolution because Americans are not into revolutions but are self-centred people with a “live and let live” mentality. A gradual transition to a pseudo-monarchy is more likely. It could start from a landslide victory of one party over the other and then the winning party wielding its ruling power to enact laws favouring everything consistent with its ideology. If the president can somehow eliminate the term limit of his tenure, he/she can remain president for an indefinite period and eventually hand over power to his successor. Such a political dynasty could eventually evolve into a monarchy.

(The writer, a physicist who worked in industry and academia, is a Bengali settled in America.)