Time to Evaluate the Health of American Democracy

FEATURING PETER BLOOM – We are at a pivotal moment in American politics. For journalists like myself, there hasn’t been an election this unpredictable or exciting or frightening in a very long time. For progressive activists (among whom I count myself) there hasn’t been a major candidate of a major party who has reflected our values like Bernie Sanders has in a very long time.

But, despite how hard Sanders and his supporters have fought, the Democratic establishment and its byzantine rules designed to be undemocratic, seem to have won. The mainstream corporate media has aided that win. And already the barrage of demands to vote for the lesser evil of Clinton in order to stave off a Trump presidency has begun. It is a crucial moment to take the temperature of American democracy as a whole, not just electorally, but in terms of citizen engagement.

Read Bloom’s CommonDreams article HERE. Find out about his book HERE.

Peter Bloom, a lecturer in the Department of People and Organizations at the Open University in the UK. He has published widely on issues of 21st century democracy, politics and economics. His forthcoming book is called Authoritarian Capitalism in the Age of Globalization. His new article published in Commondreams is entitled, If Sanders Has Lost, What Have the Democrats Won?