How Americans Can Replace Our Existing Dictatorship, by a Democracy

7 August 2025, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)

We, the American people, need to regime-change our entire Government, which has been repeatedly found by scientific studies to be controlled by its billionaires — the Parties’ megdonors — not by its public (i.e., not by the voters, who are constantly lied-to and deceived by those Parties to vote for their candidates as “the lesser of two evils” ((in a ‘good cop’ versus ‘bad cop’ routine, which produces a trapped public — NO democracy)).

During the years ever since the billionaires-controlled military-industrial complex started taking over the U.S. Government on 25 July 1945 in order to extend their private corporate empires to control not only in America but over the entire world (now called “America's global hegemony”), the U.S. Constitution has ever-increasingly been systematically violated so that, for example, the Constitutional provision that the President cannot invade a foreign country unless both houses of Congress vote by a majority to declare war against that country, has consistently and always been violated after that date. All of America’s more-than-a-hundred foreign invasions since 1945 have been by the U.S. President acting alone, and the U.S. Constitution (regarding this matter and many others) has increasingly become a mere piece of parchment whose meaning is controlled ultimately by the agents of America’s billionaires — NOT by the agenda and intentions of the Founders who collectively wrote it and each of its Amendments. In other words: the U.S. Constitution is overridden whenever the billionaires want it to be overridden.

Another example of this increasingly dysfunctional (for the public) dictatorship is the redistricting controversy in the Republican-Party-controlled state of Texas. Democratic Party members of the state legislature fled the state to temporarily stay in a Democratic-Party-controlled state in order to prevent in the Texas legislature a legislative quorum that would then be set to vote to change the shape of electoral districts in Texas so as to add five Republican-controlled districts (and subtract five Democrat-controlled districts) in the upcoming mid-term 2026 U.S. congressional elections, in order to greatly increase the likelihood that in the second half of President Trump’s term he will continue to have a Republican-controlled Congress. The Republican Governor is doing all he can to force those Democrats back into the legislature so that they can then be voted down and the shape-changes become law, or else they can be fired from the legislature by the Republican members and thus no longer even a part of the legislature. However, in order to fire the Democrats, a quorum would still be needed, thus the fled Democrats can’t be fired. They also can’t be arrested by Trump’s ‘Justice’ Department, because no federal criminal law prohibits what they did; and they can’t be arrested by Texas ‘justice’ because each of the fled legislators is in another state, a Democrat-controlled state — one that won’t cooperate with Texas ‘justice’. The Republican-controlled U.S. Supreme Court can’t become involved, because for them to do so would too blatantly violate the U.S. Constitution, and so maybe spark a Second American Revolution — what NONE of America’s billionaires want.

Of course, the news-media in such a country (where all of the main news-media are also controlled by billionaires) constantly lie in order to fool the public so as to deceive them to accept increasing military spending and increasing the empire (all at the public’s expense, and further enriching the billionaires who own the government-contractors and the extraction-corporations). For example, that’s how they ‘justified’ invading and destroying Iraq in 2003 — a country that had never posed any threat nor danger to America — and many other such lie-based U.S. invasions to expand the U.S. empire.

Every national Government that includes public elections between competing politicians has degenerated into control by the richest (such as in the United States), because the richest donate more than half of all of the money that is donated to political campaigns, and they can and do aways spend enough on politics to deceive enough voters to vote against any candidate who refuses to be bought, so that only the candidates who are willing to do what their megadonors say — obedient candidates (obedient to the billionaires) — will have any real chance to win a major public office. So, if a democracy is to be defined as ONLY a system that includes public elections between competing politicians, then democracy will always degenerate into an aristocracy of the super-rich, which is a type of dictatorship (sometimes called by such names as “aristocracy,” “oligarchy,” “plutocracy,” etc.), NOT a democracy.

Corruption always comes from the top down, not from the bottom up; it comes from the super-rich (who profit from it), not from the public (who suffer it). However, the billionaires’ ‘news’-media don’t allow this fact to be reported to the public; and, so, the public are confused, and falsely assume that the solution to corruption is “less government, more free market” — as-if to eliminate governmental regulations and laws that protect the public from corporate abuses is the way to protect the public from corporate abuses. Wow! The logic there is so ridiculous, but the public have been brainwashed by billionaires and their agents, to think this way. It is simply amazing. People have absorbed that garbage even in the billionaires’ universities — but it’s more often simplified to the alleged “magic of the free market” (the cartoon version of Adam Smith’s philosophy classic). There is no “magic” there, but just the magician’s hand and deceitful tricks, blown up so as to become “the invisible hand of God,” as a ‘justification’ for the way things are: “Might [The Almighty] makes right,” so, just let things be. Let the corruptness continue.

The basic deficiency in theory in the field of political science (which likewise is funded — directly and indirectly — by billionaires) is the false definition of “democracy” to mean public elections between competing politicians for public offices. That false definition (which is based on the billionaires’ “free market” idea, that competition is the solution to everything — so it should be applied to everything, including ‘democracy’) is the fundationstone for what is supposed to be “representative” government, but in what way will it produce a government that authentically represents the public, if it actually is representing ONLY the billionaires who control which individuals will, and which won’t, be selected by them to run as candidates in their Party’s primaries and then selected by all billionaires to fund enough to win the general election to fill the given political seat? It WON’T be a “representative” government, because it will actually represent ONLY the billionaires — NOT the public. And that is the BASIC deceit in existing political theory — the mis-definition of “democracy.” The people in power, the billionaires, WANT political theory to mis-define “democracy,” so that they and their agents (in political ‘science’ and elsewhere) will be publicly believed when they say it IS a democracy — even though it isn’t and is even PROVEN to be a dictatorship (by only the super-rich).

An authentic democracy is instead a government whose policy-priorities are the same as are the public’s policy-priorities. Here is the way that this goal (and this redefinition of “democracy”) can be achieved (and why the billionaires — the super-rich — don’t want it, and have therefore pumped their ‘democracy’ instead):

We shall start by discussing the Legislature, not the Executive, branch of government, because in any putative democracy, the legislature is the source of the laws, and the Executive executes (carries out) those laws. (Furthermore, in a parliamentary system, the head-of-state, or Executive, is chosen BY the legislature; and, so, in that type of Government, there is no other option THAN to start with the Legislative branch of government.)

For a population of around 340,000,000, which America’s is, a random sample of 500 people would be plus or minus 4.38%, of accurately representing that 340 million people, such that there is at least a 95% certainty that that 500 randomly sampled people constitute or accurately “represent” (plus or minus 4.38%) “the typical American.” Right now, the U.S. Government’s legislators are its 100 Senators and 435 Representatives. So: if the goal is to replace those 535 (almost completely corrupt) U.S. legislators with 500 randomly selected Americans, then this number of randomly sampled people (500) would be plus or minus 4.38% of accurately representing that 340 million people, such that there is at least a 95% certainty that those 500 randomly sampled people (plus or minus 4.38%) represent the policy-priorities of “the typical American.”

What would be representative about these 500 people is that the average or “typical” policy-priorities of these 500 individuals would REPRESENT (within those stated parameters) the average policy-priorities of the 340 million Americans. This is a mathematical fact (within the bounds that I’ve specified).

Currently, the best evidence of the extent to which the existing 535 U.S. legislators do or don’t REPRESENT the average policy-priorities of the 340 million Americans, is the following body of empirical data:

On February 14th, the AP headlined “Where US adults think the government is spending too much, according to AP-NORC polling”, and listed in rank-order according to the opposite (“spending too little”) the following 8 Government functions (in other words: these are the governmental functions that the public wanted the most to get more funding, and the least to get reduced funding, in that order): 1. Social Security; 2. Medicare; 3. Education; 4. Assistance to the poor; 5. Medicaid; 6. Border security; 7. Federal law enforcement; 8. The Military. That’s right: the American public (and by an overwhelming margin) are THE LEAST SUPPORTIVE of spending more money on the military, and the MOST SUPPORTIVE of spending more money on Social Security, Medicare, Education, Assistance to the poor, and Medicaid (those latter five being the functions the Republican Party has always been the most vocal to call “waste, fraud, and abuse” and try to cut — but those 5 were the most-favored by the American public). Meanwhile, The Military, which actually receives 53% (and in the latest year far more than that) of the money that the Congress allocates each year and gets signed into law by the President, keeps getting, each year, over 50% of the annually appropriated federal funds. Furthermore, the U.S. Defense Department is the only Department of the federal Government so corrupt, so intensely corrupt, that it has never been audited.

Trump (with the cooperation of the U.S. Congress) is increasing the military and border security, and decreasing education, assistance to the poor, Medicaid, federal law enforcement, and even Social Security and Medicare (the latter two by laying off many of the people who staff those bureaucracies). This Government’s policy-priorities are like the public’s turned upside-down — in other words: are the REVERSE of the public’s — and therefore the U.S. Government right now is a perfect example of a dictatorship. One might say that this is so in only the Executive branch, but it’s not necessarily true: As always when one political faction (regardless whether it it is one Party or a coalition of Parties) has control over both the Executive and the Legislative branches of the Government — as now the case in the U.S. — these two branches (Executive and Legislative) function as one, and there then will even be a totalitarian dictatorship if they can get the Judicial branch or Supreme Court to call it “Constitutional.” Currently, the U.S. is slipping from a dictatorship towards a totalitarian dictatorship; but America has been a dictatorship ever since at least 1980. And that is a dictatorship by the super-rich.

As the liberal (Democratic Party) wing of America’s aristocracy said, in the person of its Warren Buffett, “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” (He told this to the conservative Ben Stein, reporting in the aristocracy’s New York Times, under the headline “In Class Warfare, Guess Which Class Is Winning”.)

To see the empirical evidence proving that there IS class-warfare in America and that the billionaire-class is ruling this country and (by means of their agents) writing and executing its laws, click here. What it proves is that at least ever since 1980, the U.S. Government has represented ONLY the policy-priorities of the super-rich, and definitely NOT of the American people. Though that’s the situation as it had been ever since at least 1980, the current trend away from that is (as is likewise documented in those links) toward even more of a dictatorship. In other words: in America, this situation has been getting worse and worse over the decades. It is no mere fluke — not merely a Trump-era phenomenon.

I headlined on April 16th “The public lack the intellectual ability that’s needed in order for an electoral democracy to work.”, and argued there that the deficiency is not in the public, that they are insufficiently intelligent, but instead in the billionaires-s‘elected’ politicians, that they are insufficiently decent (made so by their megadonors, the s‘elected’ politicians’ virtual — but certainly not virtuous — owners).

So, the standard definition of democracy is a phony definition of “democracy” (though it’s the normal way that “democracy” is defined), because a democracy is instead a Government by representatives of each citizen equally, without regard for wealth, religon, ethnicity, or any other attribute — it is (and the term “democracy” can realistically be applied ONLY to) “Equal Justice Under Law” — and it CAN exist but never yet HAS existed (because of that false common definition for it). Therefore, all that we have had is aristocracies (and a few theocracies).

An authentic democracy would be based upon the following:

It would be replacing all public competitive elections (which inevitably will be corrupted) between competing politicians, by, instead, random assignment of members of the public, to the legislature; and, then, if that person is willing to serve as a legislator, be paid by the Government so to serve; and, then, voting BY those legislators, in the legislature. Those lottery-appointed legislators would then select from amongst themselves a head-of-state, the Government’s executive power, likewise paid by the Government. Randomly selected bar-certified lawyers would also be paid by the Government, to interview and select all judges; and all trials would be jury trials; and only pre-certified experts would be able to be paid by the court to testify on expert matters in trials. Certification of such experts would be based upon scores on purely multiple-choice specialized tests for evaluating a person’s competency in that field of expertise, so as to eliminate subjective factors and any influences by the rich (who normally select and sponsor ‘experts’). Any legislator or other Government-employee will be paid ONLY by the Government and annually audited, and any effort by any such person to derive income from any other source THAN the Government would be subject to trial and automatic firing from that Government-office if found guilty.

This would be a Governmental system that is designed so as to prevent corruption of the Government. Corruption comes almost always from the aristocracy, the super-rich, who own control over the large corporations, including the news-media and the think tanks and the most prestigious educational institutions, which they donate to and so the billionaires also fund the ‘experts’ that their ‘news’-media interview who likewise shape public opinions. The purpose would be to eliminate corruption from the Government. The common view, that the basic problem with elected Governmental officials is their incompetency instead of their corruptness, is disproven, in the relevant data.

Furthermore, in this system, there would be no term-limits (such as, for example, would have required FDR — perhaps our greatest President — to quit in 1941), and so whenever a legislator chooses to quit or else becomes expelled by a two-thirds vote of his/her colleagues, and that person’s seat then becomes filled likewise by lottery, the collective legislature will tend to become and be long-termers, and so to be exceptionally well-acquainted with one-another, and — because there will be no Parties — legislative debates on issues will then be real debates (in which the legislators help and learn from each other) and NOT win-lose contests between power-craving professional politicians. It would be a legislature composed of normal people. It would be a very different kind of legislature.

It would be the legislature for a democracy — a legisature that (UNLIKE existing ones) represents the public, by having the same (or approximately the same) policy-priorities that the public does. Consequently (and also unlike existing legislatures), the specialists and experts that it would select and hire to advise it and assist it in drafting legislation, will NOT be selected to satisfy the billionaires, but will instead be selected and hired to serve the public.

The ever-increasing privatization of the government would, by this means, be reversed, in a way that would establish instead a government that is truly public, NOT controlled by the super-rich — by some aristocracy — but truly by and for the public. This would be done by means a body (legislature) of individuals whose policy-priorities can reasonably be expected to closely approximate (or “represent”) the public’s policy-priorities. That’s to say: a democracy.

It would be an entirely different type of Government than we have.

If you have any thoughts about it, you can contact me by clicking here.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.