Too bad Myrdal did not write about the divide-and-conquer political system of the USA. We would have been better off, still.
Thank you for a wonderful article about a fantastic juxtaposition of a Swede being asked to study racial issues in the United States. We are definitively better off because of it, and we can thank the Carnegie Corporation for funding this study by Myrdal and Bunche.
But we are still haunted by racism today, despite the many steps forward.
The ideals of We The People are not just held back by racism; they are also held back by a political system that is divide-and-conquer.
This is us, to the left. We are segregated in districts and we fight each other over that one seat. Our voting system is pure divide-and-conquer. Voting minorities of as large as 49.9 percent end up unrepresented. African Americans, women, young adults, socialists, homosexuals, none of them are represented in numbers that do justice to their actual numbers.
To the right is the We The People system. As shown in the example of a city council with eight seats, almost 90 percent of the voters get their handpicked candidates. All substantial voting minorities are represented in this system.
No one in their right mind could say that our current voting system is the better system.
The Good news is that the US Constitution is already demanding the We The People voting system at the local level.
A: The US Constitution gives powers and freedoms to the Federal and State levels.
B: The 14th Amendment demands the better system is put in place by governments.
Because the Federal and State governments have #A, they are given leeway to circumvent #B somewhat.
Cities and Counties are not mentioned in the highest document of the land, not given distinct powers, and so they must follow the US Constitution fully. The local governments behave as if they were given #A, but they weren’t. They must follow the 14th Amendment, strictly.
The local level is a safe place to learn about the other and better form of democracy. Later, at the state level, we can get ourselves something similar, perhaps the German system that basically is our system but then improved where it matters. At the local level, however, the US Constitution demands we put the better system in place. It can be done, today.
