US Nowhere Near the Democracy it Claims to Be, Says Analyst

The US political system is not a real democracy because it allows the minority group to take over and rule, says an American analyst, citing the current power clash in Congress over a government shutdown as an example.

“We have a very odd form of government in the US,” Gordon Duff, an Ohio-based senior editor of Veterans today, told Press TV on Sunday. “We were set up to look like a democracy but it is not a democracy.”

He made the remarks while discussing President Donald trump’s call on the Republican members of Congress to resort to the so-called nuclear option in order to end the ongoing chaos over government shutdown.

 In yet another controversial tweet on Sunday, Trump accused Democrats of sacrificing military and border security in exchange for concessions on immigration laws and commended Republicans for hitting back.

The nuclear option, which requires the Senate majority leader to change the parliamentary rules, means Republicans would no longer need 60 votes to pass legislation and can do so with a simple majority.

Noting that Trump’s 2016 election was “impossible” given his loss of the popular vote, Duff said it was the Electoral College that elected the US president and not the American voters.

It was the same story with the US Congress, where according to the analyst Republicans were in control despite having just 37 percent of the vote.

“They do that because Congress… makes incredible rules that allow it to violate any law,” he argued. “You cannot sue or arrest people in Congress.”

He predicted that Democrats would strip Republicans of their majority in the upcoming midterm elections and use the opportunity to “cover up the crimesof Congress,” something he said the legislative body has done “in better than a decade.”

“So, America is not a democracy by any means,” he said, adding that Trump’s actions were making clear the fact that the Republican Party “is nothing but the Israel lobby and organized crime.”

Despite having a 51-49 majority in the Senate, Republicans have had a hard time delivering on Trump’s campaign promises due to resistance from Democrats and a deep-running division within the party over whether they should distance themselves from the businessman-turned-president.

The GOP’s failure to line up behind Trump and his budget bill, which asks for a dramatic increase in military funding and border security, coupled with strong demands from Democrats for protecting immigrants, led to the government’s shutdown on Friday.

R.S