A Report on the Flawed 2016 Democratic Primaries
I think this story does not need to be flagged, but could benefit from a very constrained discussion (&#x27;self-censoring&#x27;) to not let personal political opinions take over the discussion. I&#x27;ll try.<p>Is this a direction more modern, western democracies seem to be heading? I feel a loss of democratic appeal and subsequent machinations of all kinds by apparatuses of state to keep in power. Democratic in name, but the number of options available to the public limited to what is in line with what public officials think of as good sense.<p>Examples:<p>-DNC machinating to get Clinton elected as candidate. The public needed Russia (!) for a fresh dosis of unpopular truths about those machinations. This documents more evidence on machinations.<p>-The unpopular and undemocratic European Union. Examples abound. The best being the EU-constitution: struck down in popular referendums, flown in as a treaty.<p>-In my country, the Netherlands, a referendum in which the public voted against an EU-agreement with Ukraine (wholy within law, with very obvious machinations by state and political parties), on which both the government and EU reneged<p>Counter example:<p>-Brexit<p>Disclaimers<p>-Please, don&#x27;t hit on the &#x27;red herrings&#x27; (if any), like &#x27;undemocratic EU&#x27;. I see it as both a fact (imho, populus does not recognize European parliament) and an opinion (mostly in the more populist parties over Europe). Not center to my view of democracies limiting decision power of the populus.
-The &#x27;public officials&#x27; need not be those paid by the state. But more broadly: those aspiring to have their organisations have a say over public policy.