politics
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Was it a democracy when women and people of color couldn't vote?
Was it a democracy when the two party system artificially limited your options in the voting booth?
I don't think it was ever a democracy.
Well, yes. Both the ancient forms of governance resembling what we call democracy and the Greek system that gives us the word Democracy typically excluded people to various degrees. Don't take that as a value judgement, I support anything that enfranchises more people, not less but I won't try to redefine words
But the actual use of the word is a redefinition from the literal meaning, though. Democracy is power to the people, and states are the ones that keep adding conditions on who has the right to vote, starting with citizenship or criminal records - and deciding who gets to be a citizen as well as inventing new crimes that can lose you that right. This is a legal limitation that is decided by the state and it is always redefining the word. So no, modern and ancient states alike never really had a democracy, they just created a word and then decided that actually some people don't have that right, beyond the literal definition of that word. Power to the people^not everyone is people^.
People improved on the original concept. When we added seatbelts and airbags to cars, and it didn't make a model-T not a car anymore.
The Greek trolley was not a car either. We came up with a big idea, we made something very limited and pretended that it was that idea, and we've only added a coat of paint since, is the analogy I prefer to make.
Nearly 1.5 million people can't vote in Florida because they've been to prison.
Guess how many votes Trump won Florida by in 2024?