Democracy

by Errington C. Thompson, MD –

In the United States, we have always had a tug-of-war between those who want a government by the people and those who want a government by the elite or the few.

When the country was founded, there were those who preferred to be ruled by the British monarchy. We can go back and read those discussions. Loyalists or Tories weren’t idiots or fools. They were Americans who had close ties to England and wanted the security of the British Empire.

As I recall, there wasn’t much discussion surrounding these Tories in my US History textbook. The discussion focused on Jefferson, Adams, and Washington. Democracy and Freedom. Democracy was always painted as the best option.

Our democracy is a system of government in which the majority of the people can usually dictate what they want, most of the time. Right? Our constitution allows us to elect representatives to the US House and Senate. Those representatives then vote in our interest to pass laws that benefit us. We also get to elect the President of the United States through the Electoral College.

We need to think about our democracy. This may be the first time in 40 or 50 years that we really need to decide how we want to proceed. We have one major party, the Republican party, that has embraced Donald Trump as its leader. It is clear from his last tenure as president that Donald Trump has no desire for the checks and balances that we find in the Constitution; Donald Trump would gravitate toward a type of government that resembles a monarchy.

Is that what we want? This is not some existential exercise; instead, this is about how we move forward.

Democracy, or Autocracy

If a solid majority of “We the People” want to throw out our democracy, then that’s fine. But I don’t believe a majority wants that. So, if we truly want a democracy, let’s make it work for all of us; let’s make a democracy that works for the poor, the middle class, and those hard-working Americans on the assembly line.

I want a democracy that works for farmers and the hourly workers in the intercity. If we want a democracy that works for all of us, we must start now.

Who Controls Elections?

Let’s start with our elections. Do we really need an electoral college? I think the Electoral College is something that worked in the past, but I’m not sure that we need it now, so let us amend the Constitution and directly elect a president. This is a popular vote. Period. Done. No shenanigans.

Now, let’s look at our representatives. In order to elect our representatives to the House, we have to live in a specific district. In theory, each district is dictated by the census and local population. In most states, including North Carolina, the state legislature dictates our districts and how they decide to divvy up our state population.

Some states mandate that this “redistricting” be done on a nonpartisan, or bipartisan, basis. But in NC and many states, it’s done by the people in power in the legislature, and they set up districts to benefit not the state’s citizens but . . . the people in power in the legislature!

This is most commonly known as gerrymandering. This is another big problem. Assume we have a state with a majority of people belonging to the Ironhead Party, for example. Yet, with election after election, the Flat Earth Party continues to win because of gerrymandered districts. This is wrong, this is hurting our democracy.

So, instead of allowing state legislatures to draw district maps to benefit their particular party, we need to have a computer program to put in the parameters we want for our districts. Now, districts will be fairly distributed throughout the United States. We need to put six Federal judges in a room for one month. They can come out of the room once they have agreed on a formula. The people vote on the formula, which should also be written into our constitution.

The Media

I think we all understand that to have a solid democracy, we have to have an active media. This is part of the checks-and-balances system that we live in. We need a media that will question, investigate, and deliver the truth. We need a media that will investigate the big stories, like the Pentagon Papers and the atrocities at Abu Ghraib prison.

And we need the media to investigate the little stories as well as the big stories. We need to know if there is a toxic landfill three blocks from where we live. We need to know that the stream that runs through our neighborhood is contaminated with mercury from a plant 10 miles away. We need to know that our local senator has been meeting with a high-ranking official in Dubai.

Unfortunately, there is a downside to the media. Media can manipulate public opinion. When presenting a story, the media can leave out important details, making the story seem more ominous than it is.

The fact that most local news stories lead with a car crash, a fire, an assault, a murder, or a break-in is not by accident. This is deliberate. This is to get you hooked on the show. (This is known in the news industry as, “If it bleeds, it leads.”)

If you look at the opening news segment of almost any local show, they’re promoting something violent. Well, promoting is not the right term. Instead, they’re using violence to capture our attention.

We are all aware that Fox News, as well as other conservative outlets, told the American people that the 2020 election was stolen. They had news story after news story about how it was stolen. There were these mysterious boxes. There were mysterious ballots from China. There were literally hundreds of stories suggesting that Joe Biden and the Democrats manipulated the election results in favor of the Democrats. And the fact is that 99% of the stories were completely false. Yet, some Americans still believe this lie.

This is our challenge. How do we fix this? The people at Fox News knew they were lying. They knew that they were purposely manipulating the American public. How do we prevent this? No, we don’t want to censor the media, but on the other hand, we want to make sure the media is the honest broker. We want to ensure that the media is delivering the honest truth to the American people. Sometimes, reporters can get things wrong when breaking a story. That is fine. That is expected—as long as the media outlet corrects the error.

Hold the Media Accountable

Let’s not pretend manipulating the truth is only seen on Fox News and conservative news outlets. We need to remember that MSNBC, for nearly a year, pushed the story that Donald Trump and his allies were close confidantes of the Kremlin. We were basically told that Vladimir Putin picked up the phone and called folks in Donald Trump’s campaign staff, who then relayed the information directly to Donald Trump. This was not true. There were loose ties between Russia and a couple of staffers in the Trump campaign. And, yes, Paul Manafort gave election data to a Kremlin operative. But, there was no overall coordinated effort as we were told.

The media is the backbone of our society. It is the glue that holds our democracy together. We must ensure that they are honest brokers, as honest as our state senator and US representative. How can we do that?

In order to keep the media honest, the Justice Department will have to drag some news outlets into the courtroom in order to punish the most egregious errors. I understand the risks. But I also understand the consequences of doing nothing. Currently, we have 30% to 40% of the American people who think that Donald Trump was duly elected in 2020. We can’t just throw our hands up in the air and say, “Oh well.” It is not fair to those people, those Americans. They deserve to know the truth. They deserve to have the truth delivered through the television or radio or newspaper, or news magazine.

Healthcare

For years, I have avoided talking about healthcare in this column. This was a political column. I’m a doctor. But “stay away from medicine” was my mantra. I think that was a mistake. In order for us to have a healthy functioning democracy, we need to have a healthy populace. We cannot have an unacceptably high maternal death rate in the United States. We have some of the best healthcare and healthcare facilities in the world. We need to make sure that that is accessible to everybody.

Over the last 40 years, small hospitals in small towns and even smaller cities have closed. Now, it’s not uncommon for Americans in some rural communities to drive an hour or two to seek adequate healthcare. This is simply unacceptable. We need a national plan to place hospitals and clinics in small communities. We need to pay doctors and nurses a higher salary to work in these rural communities.

We also need to ensure that these small hospitals and community centers deliver state-of-the-art healthcare. We can do this only by partnering with larger medical centers and having complication conferences. These are conferences in which physicians and other healthcare providers discuss cases in which complications occur. They look at all the deaths. They look for opportunities for improvement. This is how healthcare is improved.

As a country, we spent over $4.5 trillion on healthcare last year. For that amount of money, we should have the best healthcare in the world. Every single American should enjoy great healthcare. But, as we know, that is not the case.

We need universal healthcare, and we need it implemented so that everybody gets great care in the United States. No deductibles for hospitalizations. No deductibles for medications. We negotiate drug prices. We implement a system where doctors and hospitals are paid for excellent care. Therefore, if you are an obstetrician and you have a high mortality rate, you will not be paid at the same rate as a physician with a low mortality rate taking care of the same population of patients. We want to incentivize doctors to deliver great care. We want to incentivize hospitals to deliver great care.

And universal coverage for Americans must include dental and mental health.

Equality for All

We desperately need an Equal Rights Amendment. Women must be in control of their own healthcare and their own bodies. We cannot have a true democracy where half the population can’t control their own healthcare. The ERA, as it is currently written, states, Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. As I have mentioned, I think this amendment needs another line. Let’s try this:

All persons shall have autonomy over their bodies, regardless of pregnancy status.

Pass this. Add it to our constitution. Assert that we love democracy; that we truly want democracy—and that we want true democracy, of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Make the Constitution say that we are a people who really want everyone to have a say in how the country is run. This is how we improve our democracy, instill a sense of fairness, and move the country forward.

NOTE: The views and opinions expressed here, as well as assertions of facts, are those of the author. They do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of The Urban News.