Our own “democratic deficit” surely matches Russia’s, what with President Obama & Congress dumping single payer (even in the form of a watered-down public option) despite polls consistantly showing that two-thirds of the public is for it, not to mention ex-president & mass-murderer George W. Bush’s lying us into his blood for oil Iraq War even though the public (worldwide, not just in America) was strongly agin it.  As far as our leaders are concerned, democracy has nothing to do with popular will, it’s whether a nation, in the words of G.W.B. II, is “With us or against us.”  Which makes Saudi Arabia, our staunch Mideast ally (even though most of the 9/11 perpetrators were Saudis), no matter Saudi women aren’t even allowed to drive, stoning to death & beheadings are official punishments, and with slavery having been abandoned only a decade or so ago, but who knows for sure.

The idea of a “democracy deficit” implies a democracy exists, but what is as clear in Russia, as it is in Peoria, neither the U.S. nor Russia has the makings of a real democracy.  Call it a plutocracy, or better a kleptocracy, but to suggest that any degree of organization is ordained by the people of either population, and that they people have a say in what happens, is tripe.