2024 May Be The Last Democratic Election In America—Here’s Why

If you’re an American citizen, you may be feeling a bit abandoned by your government as of late. Maybe you or someone you know lives in North Carolina and has been tragically impacted by Hurricane Helene. While the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) should be focused on American citizens, our Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has allocated over $640 million to FEMA for asylum seekers. In September, the U.S. Department of State announced that $5.55 billion would be sent to Ukraine, adding to the over $175 billion of approved aid and assistance to the European nation already passed by Congress earlier this year. Where’s all the love for the American people? Feeling a bit breadcrumbed? You wouldn’t be alone. A lot of people feel like the government is putting Americans last, leading some to predict that this upcoming election will be the last democratic one our nation will see. But is it true? Are we at the end of American democracy? Let’s evaluate the claims. What Constitutes a Democratic Election? To best understand how our elections work, you need a refresher on what the American government is best classified as. We are a representative democracy , meaning that our government is intended to be elected by its citizens. Citizens are given the right to vote (some choose not to), and they vote for government officials who are intended to represent their voters’ ideas about the role of government. You’ll also hear our form of government referred to as a constitutional republic , which specifies that our government has a written, supreme law of the land that defines power structures, limiting the power of elected officials and protecting the rights of its citizens. Whereas modern democracies like our very own hold elections, it’s important to note that an election itself can be undemocratic. A country like Singapore , for instance, is a democracy in theory, but it has had a single-party government since 1965. Sure, some parties in opposition to their People’s Action Party (PAP) have tried to challenge them, but the game is rigged against them, from media restrictions to electoral boundary issues, meaning that electoral districts are reportedly redrawn in ways that consolidate PAP supporters or split up any opposition. This practice is known as gerrymandering, which may sound pretty familiar to you. In America, we experience gerrymandering too. Though it's sometimes tough to prove that partisan gerrymandering is indeed occurring, it doesn’t stop people on bitter ends of each spectrum from accusing the other side of redrawing district lines to maximize electoral advantages. Sometimes those accusations are true, like in the case of Maryland’s 6th Congressional District, which was redrawn in 2011 to shift Republican voters out and bring Democrat voters in, ultimately leading to a lawsuit . But I digress. Democracies, even ours, which isn’t a direct democracy (think Ancient Greece) but a representative democracy, are supposed to have democratic elections. According to former U.S. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, four critical criteria reveal whether an election is democratic or not. "Democratic elections are not merely symbolic,” Kirkpatrick said. “They are competitive, periodic, inclusive, definitive elections in which the chief decision-makers in a government are selected by citizens who enjoy broad freedom to criticize government, to publish their criticism, and to present alternatives.” Let’s briefly break these down: If an election is competitive , that means all parties enjoy the freedom of speech to openly voice their criticisms of the current government and not face barriers when trying to reach the voters via airwaves, public appearances, or written work. If an election is periodic , that means no one candidate can remain in office forever. We don’t do dictators – candidates must accept that the voters may eventually vote them out. If a government is inclusive , that means there are no concentrated power sources selecting government officials. All citizens are given voting access, and their vote should actually count. If an election is definitive , that means they’re actually empowered to lead the government. We don’t do shadowy figureheads , or, well, we’re not supposed to. So, given these four markers of democracy, are we seeing early warning signs of our proverbial empire in collapse? Elon Musk Predicts an Impending “Nightmare” In late September, Elon Musk posted on X that if Trump is not elected in November, he thinks it will be America’s final democratic election. His reasoning is as follows: The Democrat establishment has been fast-tracking citizenship for “asylum seekers” (a.k.a. illegal migrants, who are being given that euphemistic rebrand to soften any offense toward people who are here illegally). While there is no doubt there’s a population in America who are genuine “asylum seekers,” the Biden/Harris administration openly welcomed a mass influx of them and has set a precedent to ignore existing asylum laws. Asylum seekers are supposed to apply in the first safe country they enter, but the Biden/Harris White House has ignored that rule. For example, Venezuelan “asylum seekers” have to pass through all of Central America to get to the United States, but they aren’t required to remain in Mexico while our government processes their asylum applications. Former President Donald Trump required that, but the Biden/Harris Administration not only nixed that practice but made it easier for illegal immigrants from Venezuela to be granted temporary protection and work authorization. Musk pointed out that so-called asylum seekers (side note, asylum seekers used to have to prove they were facing persecution) are being released “into swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin and Arizona,” where they’re granted social security numbers, work permits, and other benefits while their refugee claims are processing. Yes, that even means being allowed to vote in elections. So, if you’re tracking, some people who enter the country illegally are being allowed to vote in our elections. In contrast, American felons can lose their right to vote . Though I’m sure some illegal immigrants would vote for a Republican candidate, Democrats work overtime to court them with promises of welfare programs and fast-tracked citizenship, so you could see why Musk warned that, if America continues down this path, we could become “a one-party state and Democracy is over.” Representative Thomas Massie, who represents Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District, replied to Musk’s post explaining how this strategy takes a two-prong approach. “When they bring illegals to blue states, the blue states get extra electoral votes in the presidential election and extra congressional districts, even though the illegals can’t vote. This is because we count them in the census and for apportionment,” Rep. Massie wrote. So, even if Republicans get back in office, meaning that former President Trump succeeds in his re-election bid and our House of Representatives leans Republican, some skeptics think our country is irreversibly set down this undemocratic path. Senior editor for The Post Millennial , Andy Ngo, warned on X that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security doesn’t have the resources to enforce mass deportations of illegal immigrants. He also alleged that the “illegal migrant lobby” holds a lot of power and resources. Some states have tried to counter the influence of illegal immigrants on American elections, like Alabama, where they tried to remove them from voter lists. However, the Department of Justice fired back against Alabama with a lawsuit to prevent their safeguarding of American democracy, alleging that it was taking place too close to November’s election. Heed this warning from a Californian – me – who was raised in a state where one ballot proposition painted this state blue by broadening amnesty for illegal migrants back in the mid-1980s. Musk pointed to this event in his post, predicting that the rest of America “will be like the nightmare that is downtown San Francisco” if millions upon millions of alleged asylum seekers are fast-tracked American citizenship. For all the talk of former President Trump being a threat to democracy, Democrats sure don’t seem to bat an eye at their own policies, which put America’s democratic elections on the chopping block. Is It Time To Raise White Flags? So, if Ngo’s prediction is accurate and we can expect doom and gloom no matter who wins in November, what could our government do to proactively battle real threats to American democracy? Former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy believes that American trust in elections could be restored if three criteria are met. First and foremost, Ramaswamy said that our elections should be held as a national holiday and that voting should only take place on that single day. This shouldn’t really be such a shocking proposition since convenience, laziness, and widespread technology developments have transformed our Election Day into Election Season, where citizens (and I suppose, illegal migrants) can cast their ballot from many locations on many dates. Critics of this concept say that many working-class people must work, even on “national holidays,” so voting would become far less accessible. Ramaswamy also urged us to return to paper ballots and said that requiring government-issued identification to vote “shouldn’t be controversial.” Critics of paper ballots point to modern technology and assert that electronic voting machines are secure. But recently, voting machine scandals in Puerto Rico have revived skepticism over electronic election interference. In fact, left-leaning former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. even commented on that current event, urging that U.S. elections return to paper ballots. Whether we can prove past election interference or not, paper ballots would give additional safeguarding against fraud. In addition to paper ballots, some other countries even require purple ink on people’s fingers to prevent them from voting more than once, and, surprise, surprise, photographic identification. Look, if you have to show a photo ID to pick up a bottle of wine from BevMo or a pack of cigarettes from 7/11 – seemingly inconsequential, commonplace events in many people’s lives – it shouldn’t be so controversial to require it when we’re talking about the future direction of local, state, and federal government. Closing Thoughts What’s so special about America is that our Constitution protects free speech and individual liberty. Voting is a right – one that you actually have the choice to opt out of. But if our rule of law is undermined by policies that compromise the integrity of our electoral process, then American democracy is actually under threat. We’re a constitutional republic, one which has a legal framework to govern how we participate in the democratic process. Voting should be accessible, transparent, and secure – and none of this should be a partisan issue.