Someone tell me why this is a silly thing to say:
It is naive to trust that US elections are valid demonstrations of democracy.
It is naive to trust that US elections are valid demonstrations of democracy.
What do "trust", "valid" and "democracy" mean in this context?
Let me re-phrase your question in an attempt to answer it. Strong form: "Do American elections reflect the will of the populace?" Semi-weak form: "Do American elections reflect the votes of the voting populace?" Weak form: "Does the American system of governance work better than others?"
On the strong form, I don't know. Measuring the "will of the populace" and defining a nation's "populace" is a philosophical question.
On the semi-weak form, probably. For every Georgia there are 49 other states. The American electoral system is distributed. Flattening distributions brings buys resilience at the cost of moronic outliers (like this). The same factors that make coördinating systemic changes tough thwart efforts at electoral corruption.
On the weak form, very probably. We just don't have a multi century, multigenerational society that has generated as much wealth for as many people while confronting the number of difficult questions the American system has. It's far from perfect. But its base assumptions about separation of powers, peaceful change of guard and an independent judiciary appear correct. Notably, no competitors to the Washington Consensus boast those three attributes.
On the semi-weak form, obviously not. Voter suppression is constant and ubiquitous in most states. Gerrymandering has caused international organizations to classify states in the US as non-democracies, and explicitly suppresses the will of the voting population as its stated goal. It is extremely effective. The majority of the population of states vote for one policy position, and the polar opposite party will receive a two-thirds unbeatable veto-proof majority in the legislature. There is incontrovertible evidence that even presidential elections were explicitly and intentionally stolen (Gore) -- we know this happened. There is strong evidence to suggest the subsequent election was stolen as well, with the election in Ohio raising every red flag election monitors know to look for and some they hadn't yet invented because they were so blatant as to be unthinkable (the owner of the company that distributed all voting machines in the state explicitly, publicly promised to deliver the election to the candidate who won). While the system is in principle distributed, in reality it is anything but: a tiny number of very easily hacked, bought, corrupted, and infiltrated swing state electoral systems decide the fate of the entire nation, safe from the scrutiny and security requirements that an actual federal election system would have to undergo.
On the weak form, are you kidding? Nearly every electoral system in any modern democratic state is far superior. Your statements about peaceful change of the guard, separation of powers, and the judiciary (its independence is laughable; judges are explicitly selected partisans who dictate partisan policy positions from the bench instead of voting for it in congress) are all totally irrelevant to the question as it should be formulated in it's weak form: does the American electoral system work better than others? Nothing was asked or stated about the system of governance. You only even answer the question you asked by taking an extreme ideologically charged definition of "work better". The question you implicitly asked (that you answered) is: is the American system of governance effective at preserving a tradition of peaceful transfer of power from oligarch to oligarch? Has the obvious answer, yes. As does the system in North Korea.
>We just don't have a multi century, multigenerational society that has generated as much wealth for as many people while confronting the number of difficult questions the American system has.
We don't have such a society that has generated much wealth for the many; rather, for the few.
The only thing that keeps Americans from publicly admitting these obvious truths about the voting system is a need to believe that the system works; we accept that obviously undemocratic results are democratic because to accept the alternative (which happens to be true) is unthinkable and would cause chaos. It is a group lie we tell ourselves to make society function.
You really should get out more. Go visit some countries around the world. Study history beyond the 4th grade level. Your claim is so bad, it isn't even wrong.
This is not the strong form parent was talking about. Here is the strong form:
"Do American elections reflect the will of the populace?"
American elections are not the same as the policy changes made by the people elected; You are arguing against something like "Does American governance reflect the will of the populace?"
Can you link to some of those studies? I'm very interested in seeing the method they used in determining the will of the populace.
http://wws.princeton.edu/faculty-research/research/item/test...
It seems to be doing pretty well.
I think you might thinking they are not but, there are multiple angles to this, do want to talk about gerrymandering, foreign state actors hacking electronic voting machine, corrupt politicians interfering, our own intelligence agencies hacking our elections.