# Can we at least stop pretending we have an operational democratic system? (Part 2 of 2)
Date: 2026-08-28
Previous Part: https://disrael.github.io/blogs/raw/can-we-at-least-stop-pretending-we-have-an-operational-democratic-system.part1.md

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> The Federalists called for a strong national government that promoted economic growth and fostered friendly relationships with Great Britain in opposition to Revolutionary France. The Federalist Party came into being between 1789 and 1790 as a national coalition of bankers and businessmen in support of [Hamilton’s fiscal policies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamiltonian_economic_program "Hamiltonian economic program").

The Federalists were soon opposed by Democratic-Republican Party that favored a more slave based economy.

Coming back to the Supreme Court it of course didn’t escape their attention that political parties are innately anti-democratic:

> On June 30, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6–3 to strike down federal limits on how much money political parties can spend in direct coordination with their candidates. [[1](https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/justices-strike-down-campaign-finance-law/)]

Which brings us to the second election that Trump won. In that election the presidential ballot was chosen by “delegates” — matching an older American system where [popular vote didn’t matter](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-did-kamala-harris-wrap-up-the-democratic-nomination-in-32-hours/).

> At 4:00 PM Central Time, Tennessee became the first state to pledge delegates to Harris. Seventy delegates [joined](https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/politics/2024/07/21/tennessee-democratic-dnc-delegates-back-kamala-harris-as-presidential-nominee/74492560007/) a Zoom call and voted unanimously to endorse Harris.

Unless you live in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, or West Virginia then you don’t even vote directly on Democratic Party “delegates”; they are chosen for you. So even for Americans belonging to the Democratic party only a very few of them even voted for a “delegate” and none of them voted directly for Harris as their “party” nominee. (Plus throw pro-Israel lobbying groups into the mix and you have anti-democracy stew.)

And of course everyone is aware of the crazy “super” delegate nonsense that helped produce Hillary Clinton as the 2016 DNC candidate.

In short you don’t get Trump from an abundance of democracy, you get Trump from two of the most fucked up elections of all time. The Supreme Court is throwing gasoline on the fire by allowing more and more money into the election process and maybe helping stop mail in voting, but the fire started with a nation sitting on the fence on allowing mass participation in democracy from the beginning.