How the U.S. Government Pretends to Be a Democracy

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

It’s done in the usual way that ‘democracies’ do: by fooling the public and then ‘justifying’ its actions by citing polls showing that the public has been successfully fooled to support what it’s doing.

Here is an example:

On April 10th, Yahoo News headlined “House passes bill that could make it harder for married women to vote”. Did this really result from a democracy? No, it didn’t — here’s what it resulted from:

On March 11th, Yahoo News headlined “An effort to block non-citizens from voting could impact married women, too”, and reported that the bill was introduced by a Texas Republican, Chip Roy, who said “It’s being attacked because the policy is wildly popular with the American people, its opponents want and need illegals to vote, and they’ll use anything they can to attack it.” The first clause is tragically true, but the second one is a lie.

Yahoo News is a Democratic Party front, a propaganda-site representing the slant of Democratic Party billionaires; and so this article, which is entirely true, is part of their propaganda-war competing against Republican Party billionaires. It opened:

Millions of American women have a different last name than what’s on their birth certificates, and House Republicans have prioritized a bill that voting rights groups say could make it harder for them to vote.

Several voting rights groups warn the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act — which purportedly aims to block non-citizens from voting, something that is already illegal — will pose a barrier for millions of American women and others who have changed their legal name because of marriage, assimilation or to better align with their gender identity.

As the article correctly pointed out:

The bill would require an individual to present in person a passport, birth certificate or other citizenship document when registering to vote or updating their voter registration information.

Such a requirement could pose barriers for large swaths of Americans: More than 9 percent of citizens of voting age — or 21.3 million people — do not have documents readily available that prove their citizenship. …

An estimated 69 million American women and 4 million men do not have a birth certificate that matches their current legal name, according to the liberal Center for American Progress.

It then went on to quote both Republican and Democratic members of the House, and their supporting ‘non’-profits (such as the Democratic-Party one, Center for American Progress) for and against it. So, other than that 34-word mention of the “21.3 million people” whom it actually WOULD “pose barriers for” if it gets passed (and not merely “COULD pose barriers for,” if it will), and the 21-word “estimated 69 million American women and 4 million men” who “do not have a birth certificate that matches their current legal name,” that 1,400-word article told its readers nothing at all that was substantial.

It got only 5 reader-comments, and the most popular of them was:

Terry

11 March, 2025

Right now it is illegal for noncitizens to vote but some states are already allowing noncitizens to vote in their local elections and that’s how to Problems usually start so let’s stop it before it becomes a problem.

Of course, that’s a Republican Party message. Chip Roy was the winner, though Yahoo News is a Democratic Party site. But he lost big-time when Yahoo did their second article about this, on April 10th:

Headlining “House passes bill that could make it harder for married women to vote”, they reported:

The U.S. House has passed a bill that voting rights groups have repeatedly warned would make it harder for millions of Americans, including married women, to vote.

The Republican-controlled House on Thursday voted for the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. The legislation purportedly aims to block non-citizens from voting, which is already illegal and is very rare.

The bill would require an individual to present in person a passport, birth certificate or other citizenship document when registering to vote or updating their voter registration information. …

This time, they added in the following blockbuster fact:

Voting rights groups have said the bill will pose a barrier for millions of American women and others who have changed their legal name because of marriage, assimilation or to better align with their gender identity. An estimated 69 million American women and 4 million men do not have a birth certificate that matches their current legal name.

This time, there were 13.7K reader-comments, and the most popular of them was:

Cindy

My mother moved several times in her lifetime and was always able to update her DL. This last time she had to not only provide her current license but her birth certificate and a STAMPED copy of her marriage certificate (the one she'd had for 65 years wasn't good enough). It made it very hard for an 85 year old woman to get her identification - especially since she is now blind. She ended up having to make 4 trips to the courthouse because whoever was in charge wouldn't accept the documents she had. Then, in addition to that, they charged extra because it wasn't done "on time." It's totally ridiculous!

“It’s totally ridiculous!” is a Democratic Party version of the Republican Party message that what’s basically wrong with the American Government is its incompetence — NOT its corruptness. But, actually, what is BASICALLY wrong with it IS its corruptness, and both Democratic Party billionaires and Republican Party billionaires DON’T want the public to know this, because they themselves ARE its corruptors.

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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.