A dictatorship is generally considered to be a government that has total authority, and which has achieved power by force of arms, both of which describe the U.S. and pretty much all states. I don’t think that it’s hyperbolic to look at the state of things in the U.S., the context for Medievalist’s comment, and draw parallels between dictatorial policy and so-called democratic policy.
To the contrary, I think that it’s a symptom of mental illness to look at a government that has never stopped carrying out genocide, and which continues to brutalize the working classes of the developing world through abhorrent labor practices and warfare, and see anything legitimate at all about the U.S. government or the big business that it represents. Combine this so-called democracy’s lack of responsiveness, widespread violation of so-called “rights” whenever it is convenient, reoccurring themes of voter fraud and insecure voting machines, suppression of third parties in favor of the incumbent two-party system, and widely demonstrated penchant for brutality, and it’s hard to seriously consider the U.S. anything but a two-party dictatorship.
The only difference between a representative democracy like the U.S. and an honest dictatorship is a thick layer of fantasy that allows people to believe that their choices in a democracy are really meaningful and that their lives are not truly ruled over by a powerful few. To be realistic, I think that most people find a comfortable, cynical political space to occupy that lets them sleep at night (I know my vote doesn’t really count, but I’m doing my civic duty, or my candidate may be evil but he’s the lesser of two evils). After all, even honest dictatorships usually have millions of supporters, usually in the majority or near-majority; their popularity doesn’t exonerate them. Purely by habit most people in most situations will support whoever is in power.
To illustrate, what happens when protests happen in, say, Egypt (one of dozens of dictatorships over the years that have been militarily backed and funded by the “democratic” US), and when they happen in the U.S.? The government brings out police to beat them up and throw a certain number of people in prison, depending on what measure of force is convenient for those in power. The intensity of each government’s response is tailored to the strength of the social movements in each country.
Besides, what does it mean if a “democracy” was founded on slavery and genocide, or when the world’s most powerful, freedom-loving representative democracy repeatedly topples democratically elected governments, installs fascist dictators, and kills millions of people? Even if we accept that representative democracy is working inside the U.S., despite all evidence to the contrary and the millions of people who are left out, forgotten, and marginalized all in the name of the “majority,” then what are we left with–democracy for us, fascism for the black and brown peoples of the world? What does that say about the value of democracy? Who does democracy include, who does it exclude, and when does it stop being a democracy?
Looking at the history of representative democracies, and how they saved the wealth and power of the nobility when various countries transitioned away from feudalism to industrialism, I’d say that they were never representative democracies in the first place, because, faced with industrial and social revolution, those in power did what they could to hold onto what they had, which is why there are still monarchs in a lot of “democracies.” In the U.S., “all men were created equal,” but we had to wait 200 years to even see that idea enforced at the official level of electoral politics, and now we’re living out the consequences of how a country builds itself when it’s run by white supremacists and warmongers. If we were going to take democracy seriously, shouldn’t we acknowledge that the whole context that we’re born into is a sham, and start over? It’s all pretty obvious when you think about it. Democracy is a load of bullshit.
Representative democracy is simply a better means of sustaining the status quo than dictatorships, which are nowadays a last resort at maintaining unpopular systems or creating “order” in the chaos created by centuries of Western colonialism. Jean Baudrillard wrote about this very subject in Symbolic Exchange and Death. To paraphrase, he basically argued that binaries are more stable for political systems than unitary structures, and that in representative democracies (generally ruled by two-party systems), power paradoxically diffracts itself in order to become stronger. Hence why dictatorships are perpetually rocked by massive upheavals, and established representative democracies generally aren’t. However, the fundamental dictatorial structure of power is still the same–one very small, very wealthy elite controlling everything by force of arms, with or without the circus of electoral politics to make it look legitimate. After all, most dictators at least put on some kind of sham elections to ape the old democratic line, ever since absolute monarchs abandoned the idea of rule by divine right (once they realized that this was a quick path to overthrow and beheading). The U.S. is essentially no different.
