All through the cold war and right up until today, the US Empire has claimed to stand for Democracy, and against Communism.
First of all, this is a false dichotomy. Democracy is supposed to be Rule by the People, and is a purely political concept.
Communism is an economic one, and its proper economic opposite is Capitalism. Strictly speaking it has nothing to say about Who Rules.
For this and many other reasons, the whole Democracy vs. Communism thing is a sham and a distraction.
From an anarchist perspective, this is very easy to see. But in the real world and for the average person, it’s pretty muddy. The People of America only dimly began to see it after a dozen years in Vietnam. The People of America in general still don’t see it after twenty years in Afghanistan.
Why were we in Vietnam? Why are we still in Afghanistan? I’ll accept almost any answer, but if you think it has anything to do with spreading Rule by the People, you’ve been hopelessly brainwashed by the self-justifying culture you grew up in.
The Empire’s war machine deployed around the world, most recently in Biden’s air war in Somalia, not only has nothing to do with democracy, but the Empire itself is no longer ruled by its people in any even marginal sense.
Putin is not a good guy. The leaders of China have their own crimes to answer for. This or that tinpot dictator around the world are probably just as bad as your media tells you they are.
We the people are no better anymore, and by most metrics over the last 75 years you could easily draw the conclusion that “We” are even worse.
The allure of the idea of democracy is that everyone has an equal say and an equal right to rule; that the collective will of the good honest farmers of the interior midwest and their better-dressed coastal brethren will result in liberty and justice for all.
There is neither liberty nor justice for all here. You don’t have an equal say. You have no sliver of a right to rule.
The reasons for this are primarily economic. The flaws of democracy are magnified a hundred fold when it is paired, and tainted with, capitalism.
The most blatant and disgusting example of this is in the Citizen’s United case, in which the Supreme Court held that Money Equals Speech: thus, that using money to buy elections was protected First Amendment activity.
But that’s just one particularly horrifying example of how American Values per the Bill of Rights have been twisted into unrecognizable shit by the proponents of rule by Capital, which is to say the plutocrats who rule you themselves.
Nice people. Well dressed. Stellar hygiene. Polite. Mostly white. Highly educated and well-spoken …
And utterly corrupted by self-interested evil.
They own everything. They own you and me both.