this author makes many good points i've been attempting to put into clear words for a long time;

On September 2nd, Pew Research — one of America’s most respected polling organizations — issued findings from their survey of 11,001 U.S. adults between July 27 and Aug. 2, 2020, regarding three important questions that are indicative of whether or not Americans believe the U.S. Government to be a democracy, or instead a dictatorship. These are those three findings:

“Elected officials face serious consequences for misconduct.” 27% Yes. (73% No.)

“Government is open and transparent.” 30% Yes. (70% No.)

“Campaign contributions do not lead to greater political influence.” 26% Yes. (74% No.)

The last-listed of those three indicates that three-quarters of the American public believe exactly the same as the existing political-science empirical studies clearly have documented to be actually the case: that America is ruled by only its wealthiest and best-connected people — that it’s an aristocracy, a one-dollar-one vote nation, instead of a one-person-one-vote nation — it’s not a democracy at all. So: that is now established as a fact in political science; it’s not merely an opinion by three quarters of the U.S. public.

However, another relevant question produced an extreme disparity between the opinions of Republicans (America’s conservatives) versus Democrats (America’s liberals) regarding whether America is a democracy, and here is that fourth question and its answers:

“Everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed.” Republicans 76% Yes. Democrats 28% Yes.

Those are diametrically opposite opinions, by the adherents to the two political Parties.

So, on that one question, America’s conservatives do consider America to be a democracy, regarding at least the factor of whether or not all Americans have equal opportunity. This question is relevant to democracy because if everyone has equal opportunity, then there is equality on at least that single matter of equality — equality of opportunity — which cannot even possibly exist in a dictatorship, because a dictatorship has dictators, who, obviously (by definition), possess enormously more opportunity than do the rest of the population. So, whereas Republicans think that America is a democracy on at least that factor (equal opportunity), Democrats equally strongly believe that it’s not.

There was also one other question on which a strong contrast existed between Republicans and Democrats, though not diametrically opposite views, and here is that fifth question, and its answers:......read more........