What was once intended as a word to describe a freer government model with the methodology of enacting the popular will, whether it be in the form of a direct democracy wherein the majority may enact their will on the minority, the representative democracy—i.e., a republic—wherein groups of people selected by demographics such as ethnicity, wage, or land may elect a representative to vote in their place in the interests of greater policies so that they can more freely participate in their day-to-day activities, or a mixed democracy wherein both methods exist in different strata of government and a public forum remains for the vox populi open to collectively suggest bills to later be voted on as law or vetoed into oblivion, has in the modern era—and even the era before us—instead been warped into a word to reinforce the evangelizing of imperialism; in essence, it has been deprived of its intended meaning to instead be synonymous with colonialism, and therefore, oppression.
We have seen this before in the prior era wherein France justified the brutal colonization of Vietnam with, "spreading democracy," and we see this now in the modern era wherein the American Empire justifies its global colonialism and Amestapo police state with, "spreading democracy."
Democracy, to the American politician, means nothing more than levying the American ethnicity by force onto any other ethnicity: to push them out of their conquered lands, and invade anywhere that will provide greater capital to the Americans. This largely doesn't even benefit the average American: one only has to look at how Alaska and Hawai'i are represented on maps within the lower 48 states of the American Empire, alongside its entirely lacking representation in the myriad American colonies, or god forbid include its global military spores dotting the entire Earth, to see that America doesn't actually care about its people.
It only cares about the production of capital; a state wherein, "the economy," doesn't represent the collective labour and materials of the workers, but instead means the pockets of the bourgeoisie. America is not a democracy, and even in the semantics of describing it as a republic, it isn't a republic either. The question must then be posited: if the American Empire isn't a democracy as it espouses, then what is it, really?
I've heard various terms to describe it: a republic (by those who believe semantics of the de jure are more important than the de facto), a corporatocracy (this is somewhat accurate as the description of the theory of inverted totalitarianism, wherein corporations covertly manipulate seemingly democratic countries in their favour), or a duopoly, as examples.
To put it succinctly and more accurately: the American empire is an autocracy. Whether one likens this to a dictatorship on account of being synonyms is up for philosophical debate, but just as Donald Trump performing fascistic praxis whether he's a fascist at heart or an opportunist working with fascists to further his own goals is irrelevant as, in either case, he's platforming fascism, it's irrelevant to debate the semantics of whether the American Empire is intentionally or opportunistically an autocracy.
Whomever is elected the President of the United States is de facto given an autocratic position via the dysfunctionality of the American government and the diseducation of the American people. They enforce their will not only upon the 50 states, but also the myriad disautonomous American colonies, ignore the demands and deaths of oppressed Indigenous Americans, and Executive Orders are treated as law long before they're approved by Congress and exercised with precompliance nationwide.
The American Empire especially enacts its autocracy on a global scale, being de facto an international government (though I hesitate to call it a, "world government," as there are many sovereign nations which successfully resist much of the American boot) exercising its power through both military and economic capital.
Whether the President of the United States is an autocrat according to the law is irrelevant: when the Executive position is occupied by one person, who may appoint lifelong positions to the Supreme Court who interpret the meanings of the Constitution of the United States, who may influence global economic policy, who may have control over the movements of the military as the Commander-in-Chief, may bypass the rulings of the Supreme Court and Congress, and especially when the government is fully seized in all three branches by oligarchs who will readily follow their word and the words of their rapidly-changing officials with little to no resistance, question, or hesitation (one must acknowledge the American Democrats refusing to do little more than release statements and exercise non-disruptive protests, even going so far as to invoke the Color Revolution playbook and astroturf protests for the purpose of reinforcing their own party; the American Republicans are not the only guilty party here), then the President of the United States, however much the law disagrees, is de facto an autocrat.
I have seen this analysis likened to a Yankee doodle philosophy, but to deny the autocratic nature of the American Empire is, in itself, historical revisionism. The true American idiot is the philosopher who recognizes that an autocrat as blatant as Donald Trump is a dictator, but fails to extend this analysis to Biden, to Bush, to Obama, et cetera. The American Empire, as long as it has existed, has impressed its will upon those unfortunate enough to be labeled as the American people no matter the cost, and has always been an autocracy.
While I still have other documents that I'm working on simultaneously—one of which has exceeded 4,000 words already—I feel I should take a moment to acknowledge two important things.
One: I am currently writing a potential model for the Socialist Republic of Sol (though it must be stated that it will describe basic principles, not going in-depth to every single preliminary law and functionality of preserving multiculturalism; that would be an absurd thing to ask as, even with the ability to learn from Socialist projects of the past, it would be impossible to predict what material changes may be necessary until it's an in-progress societal project).
On this note, I would like to acknowledge that I've previously spoken on the concept of the pseudostate. This was because, at the time, I had fundamentally misunderstood some philosophy from prior Socialist philosophers, and to put it bluntly had no idea what I was talking about when I coined the concept, akin to Ho Chi Minh initially approving of Lenin out of awe long before he began to actually understand Leninism[1], and later reflected his sociopolitical analysis rather than blind adoration.
To put it succinctly, though I may speak on it in greater detail at a later time, Comrade Andrew Sage speaking on Anarchism unintentionally opened my eyes to some extreme flaws with the Anarchist model that, to my knowledge, cannot be meaningfully reconciled. In order for the autonomy of Anarchists to be preserved, there must, ironically, be a state outside the Anarchist jurisdiction as a safety net for when problems inevitably arise.
I would specifically recommend reading On Authority by Friedrich Engels at the moment until I explain my understanding in greater detail, as he briefly explains an entirely unrelated but equally problematic flaw of Anarchism vs. State Socialism, which has additionally made me question the anti-state philosophy of Communism when this inherently doesn't even reflect the philosophy of one of its initial authors.
Consequently, this means that I will be rewriting The Red Star of Heoism, branching it into a First Edition (with notice that it has been revised at a later time, as I feel similar to Marx's description of not being able to modify The Communist Manifesto despite disagreeing with some portions of it in later years, instead viewing it as a preliminary document) and a Second Edition wherein I refine the philosophy, and that the model of the Socialist Republic of Sol will be a statist model (though I must clarify that it will take the form of a style of mixed democracy I'll be titling an Autistic Democracy—this will make sense at a later time—that takes into account Indigenous rule and ethnic rights—ethnic here referring to a shared culture, not the secondary definition synonymous with race) directly involved in trading with and protecting Anarchist communes that wish to remain autonomous from the state.
Secondarily, at the time of writing, there is less than 12 hours before an approximate 14,000 babies are going to die in Gaza due to the joint American-Israeli blockade against aid to Palestine.[2] The autocrats have not been assassinated. The Empire has not been usurped. The blockades have not been bombed. The colony has not been invaded.
We are all complicit in the genocide of Gaza.