Since James Madison day (and long before), there have been constant struggles over "democratic governance".

Nobody should have any illusions. The United States has essentially a one-party system and the ruling party is the business party.

The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful.

Syria is bad enough, it's a pretty terrible atrocity. But there are much worse ones in the world. So for example, the worst atrocities in the past decade have been in the Congo, the Eastern Congo, where maybe 5 million people have been killed.

The Republican Party has pretty much abandoned any pretense of being a traditional political party. It's in lockstep obedience to the very rich, the super rich and the corporate sector. They can't get votes that way so they have to mobilize a different constituency. It's always been there, but it's rarely been mobilized politically. They call it the religious right, but basically it's the extreme religious population.

Concentration of executive power, unless it's very temporary and for specific circumstances, let's say fighting world war two, it's an assault on democracy.

In fact, anyone who merits attention and who promotes any cause at all is doing so on the basis of a belief that it is somehow good for humans, because of their inherent nature.