a moment of clarity.

words.

"We tell ourselves stories in order to live, as Joan Didion said. We do this as a nation, as individuals, as families — even when that construct is demonstrably false. For the United States, the biggest institutional lie of the moment is that we have a government of the people, responding to majority will.

On almost every single concern, Congress — whether it’s the misnamed People’s House, or the Senate, laughably mischaracterized as the world’s greatest deliberative body — is going against what most of the country wants. And Congress is doing this because there will be no consequences.

We have a fake democracy, growing less responsive and less representative by the day.

The biggest example of this is the monstrosity of a health care bill, which a cartel of Republicans finally allowed us to peek at on Thursday. The lobbyists have seen it; of course. But for the rest us, our first look at a radical overhaul of one-sixth of the economy, something that touches every American, comes too late to make our voices heard.

...The symptoms of democratic collapse — from the opioid crises of people who long ago checked out of active citizenship to the stagnation of class mobility — cry for immediate action.

It takes the median worker twice as many hours a month to pay rent in a big city today than it did in the early years of the baby boomer era, as Edward Luce notes in his new book, “The Retreat of Western Liberalism.” Add towering increases in health care and college costs to that and you’ve got an unclimbable wall between low-income limbo and a chance at the middle class. The United States, once known for our American Dream, now has the lowest class mobility of any Western democracy, according to Luce.

What is Congress doing? Nothing on wages. Nothing on college tuition. And the health care bill will most surely force many people to choose between buying groceries and being able to visit a doctor.

...Trump is president, of course, despite losing the popular vote by nearly 3 million people. Almost 60 percent of the public is against him now. In a parliamentary system, he’d be thrown out in a no-confidence vote. In our system, he’s primed to change life for every citizen, against the wishes of a majority of Americans. Try calling that a democracy while keeping a straight face."

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Our Fake Democracy