Democracy is..

My perspective on what United States democracy is.

Exploration

The goal of this project was to create a poster that finishes the sentence “Democracy is..” I could have either taken a positive approach or a critical one and I went with the latter. I recalled learning about the repercussions of Super PACs in my U.S. Government course so I started doing research into what a super PAC is and and how they affect elections.

This led me to learn about something called special interest groups. These are communities that are focused around a specific interest or area of knowledge and aim to further a cause for their interest. In politics, these groups will lobby for the passing of legislation and PACs will act on their behalf to influence legislation. These groups will also “donate” money to congresspeople and sometimes go as far as to hire legal teams to write bills to be put in front of congress. I find that this creates a dangerous imbalance in which interests legislation supports. Since groups that have more capital have more resources to affect legislation, high earning sectors like oil and gas have more sway than green energy groups, for example. 

These topics made me think of political cartoons. I’ve always enjoyed the art of political cartoons. Political cartoonists are able to convey very strong and invoking message through only a few panels – oftentimes just one. I researched how complex and controversial political topics like these have been represented in political cartoons. 

All credit to Dave Granlund

All credit to Khalil Bendib at www.otherwords.com

Putting It Together

The political cartoons inspired me to create something similar. Something hard hitting and direct. I chose to represent congress with the large suited figure in the center and political interest groups as the suit in the bottom right with the hand coming out of it. The figure in center has all their attention on the hand holding the money while crowds of everyday citizens march ignored. Clearly, only those holding the money are being heard. The background of American flags is a tongue in cheek contrast between what the country and government should stand for – everyone having a voice, equal representation – and what is actually happening. The link at the bottom leads to a site that shows how much money changes hands between interest groups and congresspeople.