“To decide once every few years which member of the ruling class is to repress and crush the people through parliament - such is the real essence of bourgeois parliamentarianism, not only in parliamentary-constitutional monarchies, but also in the most democratic republics.”

― Vladimir Lenin, The State and Revolution

Western liberal democracies are structurally flawed, and despite the immense systemic advantage capital already enjoys, capital still needs to manipulate education, religion, and media to persuade people to vote against their own material interests. The result is a political landscape that, in many cases, produces outcomes more dysfunctional than those seen in some modern monarchies or even historic feudal systems—yet with the added disadvantage that many citizens remain unaware of their own diminished political and economic conditions, convinced they live in the freest societies on earth and that everything elsewhere must be worse. Concluding such a system is not truly democratic, or merely a democracy of the bourgeoisie is a valid conclusion, because whether systematic or through manipulation of education, religion and media, they are the only ones who benefit from it, and the majority have no means of getting what they want.

I know you already know this. This comment was meant for any lurker who doesn't know. The people who think they are one election away from fixing the system if they would only voter harder.