The problem is we got rid of "democracy" a long time ago.

The original premise was you have a lot of elected officials and then they act as checks and balances on one another. So, for example, to pass a law against something it has to be voted on by the House (elected officials), and the Senate (originally elected by state legislatures, giving the states, an independent elected body, a voice in the federal government; not anymore) and then signed by the President (another elected official), and then as a final check it had to be upheld by the courts (elected by the President and Senate for lifetime terms).

Then we effectively replaced most of that with administrative bureaucrats that act only within the executive branch. They're not only not directly elected, they're not even indirectly elected by the Senate; the President appoints them -- or they're hired by other unelected bureaucrats -- and then they tend to stick around between administrations because there are so many of them that you can't plausibly replace millions of people every time the constituents want to change who is in office.

Meanwhile they make the rules and enforce them and bypass the courts through coercive plea bargaining. But we call an attack on this system an attack on democracy?

I laughed so hard at that when it happened, and I just did it again reading this.

There are lots of Democrats legitimately elected to Congress who are not using their lawful power effectively. But the other answer is that Dems could have created a party worth voting for ten or even five years ago.

Because notionally, the “game” isn’t supposed to be winners-take-all. And democrats believe in the game even when they’re not winning.

> What was the party that continually lost all the important elections supposed to do?

They're supposed to write a coherent plan with specifics on what they are going to do once they are in power. The (R) side did this with Project 2025. It was detailed and specific and they are executing on it like a checklist. Where is the (D) checklist?

> You want the DNC to do stuff, to solve problems, to execute plans that grow this country, you have to put them into power first

I'm not going to help vote them into power unless I see what their plan is. Even a one-liner that says "We have a list of what Trump did and we're going to revert each commit!" is better than nothing. Their party platform from 2024 is vague and talks more about principles and what they're not going to do rather than specific things they are going to do.

And the fact Biden didn't use the bully pulpit is a real indictment on the administration. LBJ knew how to whip up support from recalcitrant congresspeople.