they prize what the call 'democracy'
as if it were their own invention
rather than the flawed process
only half recorded by history
of what some city states
in ancient Greece once did.
Yet even as they laud and praise
the ability to choose via the vote
they celebrate even more
how regularly elections are rigged
to produce dishonest winners.
What the praise disguises is how close
the honest loser was to winning the prize
before the winner won the election.
Very few American presidents
have been chosen by landslide majorities,
or even won the majority popular vote.
US Presidents like to ignore how their new role
is more the result of a legal settlement
than the triumph of some new consensus
in which they are merely first among equals.
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