In school, we were taught that the United States of America was a Democracy. Such platitudes as "one man-one vote," "Constitutional Guarantees," and "Freedom" were burned into our brains. We were taught that the majority of other nations did not enjoy these wonderful "God-given" rights.
A close examination of American history tells a different story, however.
From the time of its founding, until 1965 when the Voting Rights Act was signed into legislation, the United States of America was not a Democracy. Several institutional and economic obstacles stood in the way of universal enfranchisement
Between 1965 and 2010, the year in which the highly-politicized Citizens United decision was handed down by the Conservative Majority Supreme Court, there was a brief interlude during which voting in elections was at least, de jure, a guaranteed right for all American citizens.
Today, in a well-coordinated scheme, barriers to voting are being erected in several states, including those with particularly tarnished histories in this regard, that make the Berlin Wall look porous.
Dark money now undermines the true will of the people.
Maybe it's time to re-think the teaching of civics in our schools.