Libertarians tend to not be cheerleaders for democracy, especially pure democracy. It is two wolves and a sheep voting on what is for dinner. Still, in what is supposed to be a constitutional republic, you can favor certain democratic processes.
Democracy within a free-market system is great. You can vote with your money. You are even, in a sense, voting with any exchange, including your labor. You are also voting when you choose not to buy something. It is all voluntary.
When it comes to government, voting doesn’t make something fair or just. It can oftentimes be a violation of property rights. It can infringe on the rights of the minority. In our system today, sometimes it even infringes on the rights of the majority.
Although we shouldn’t cheer on democracy, sometimes we would be better off today if we actually did have some democracy. Even with all of the media propaganda, you have to wonder if the majority of Americans would vote to send money to Ukraine while they have trouble paying for their groceries and insurance.
The Democratic Nominee Selection
Joe Biden has declared that he will drop out of the presidential race. Almost everyone has realized that he has dementia or some kind of cognitive issue. It was rather obvious several years ago, but the establishment media had protected him up until his disastrous debate performance.
Let’s remember that there really was no choice in the first place in voting for a nominee for the 2024 presidential election. There was on the Republican side. Trump wisely chose not to attend the Republican debates, but there were definitely primaries with many candidates to choose from. It’s just that the Republican electorate overwhelmingly chose Trump.
On the Democratic side, any establishment candidates were prevented from running. They may not have literally been prevented, but the word went out that there would be no challengers. Robert Kennedy Jr. quickly realized that the process would not be fair with the Democratic establishment in charge. He would simply not be allowed to get the nomination, so he chose to run independent.
Now that Biden is dropping out, it is likely that the nominee will be chosen at the convention. I’m sure there is already a short list of names floating around. Maybe the person has already been decided, if unofficially, behind closed doors. It could be Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton, or some governor. We’ll find out soon enough.
But there is a larger point. The people of the Democratic Party will not choose the nominee. They do not get a say. They tried to nominate Bernie Sanders a couple of times, and the ruling elite made sure that didn’t happen. Bernie dutifully fell in line with the establishment once he was knocked out (both in 2016 and 2020).
Now they don’t have a Bernie problem. The ruling elite can just select the candidate without the voters having the option of stirring up any trouble.
This is rather rich considering the talking points we have heard about Donald Trump. They say that Trump is the next coming of Hitler and that he is a threat to democracy. Yet, it is the “Democratic” Party that is not allowing the people to vote for their nominee.
They don’t need to risk any unapproved candidate possibly saying something that goes against the official narrative. There won’t be any significant questions raised about supporting overseas wars or infringing on civil liberties at home.
The “Democratic” View
The “Democratic” Party hasn’t really had to use this play in the playbook yet. They might like it.
Why worry about what the dumb voters think? We can just tell them who they are supposed to support. And we’ll call it democracy and hope that nobody sees the glaring contradiction.
Also, let’s make sure we just focus on the presidential race. Biden is too demented to run for president, but he can still be the president for another 6 months. Just make sure nobody asks who is actually making the decisions. After all, it’s just all part of the democratic process that Trump is trying to destroy.