With midterm elections finalizing last week, the U.S. has an influx of new representatives in Congress. According to ABC News, more than 124 million people voted in the 2026 midterm elections, exercising the people’s power to decide who would lead their government.
Democracy implies many different things to many different people. The terminology that explains democracy’s various characteristics can even complicate how many think about the peoples’ power. The etymological origin of the word democracy stems from the Greek roots dēmos and kratos, meaning “common people” and “rule” or “power,” respectively.
“The people’s power,” is a phrase that permeates American political social circles, and yet the understanding of it differs from person to person.
Many students understand exercising power as voting.
USD sophomore Alma Suarez commented on characteristics she believes are a part of the people’s power.
“[It’s] Equality,” Suarez said. “Simply, equality. Giving everyone the right to [vote is important].”
USD senior Suyara Farache weighed in on the idea.
“If some people are less informed or can’t access going to vote, I feel like that hinders democracy.”
The U.S.’ participatory mode is largely electoral voting, or indirect democracy. This type of democracy includes voting from the local level all the way to the president. What some may call a “pure” democracy can be noted back to Athens, which bypassed elected representatives, and had citizens vote directly on issues.
In his book, “Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens,” chapters of which are assigned to students in USD’s Democratic Theory course this semester, author Josiah Ober illustrates what Athenian democratic politics looked like.
“Most government officials were selected by lot,” Ober wrote. “Lotteried officials had very limited powers; their office was generally collegiate, annual and subject to judicial scrutiny. The key decision-making body of the Athenian state was the Assembly.”
The U.S. still has modes of direct democracy that are aligned with characteristics of Athenian democracy. This includes the people’s ability to vote directly on ballot initiatives, propositions and referendums. However, some of these only exist in certain states and are far less exercised than the electoral vote. While this is still an exercise of democratic power, an election in itself seeks to decide who is the best representative of the people, which naturally follows in the people having less direct power. A democracy which uses representatives can additionally be categorized as a republic, as the U.S. is considered. While they imply different characteristics of political societies, these terminological differences still fall under the idea of democracy.
USD Political Science Professor Timothy McCarty, Ph.D., commented on the different avenues of democratic power.
“The fact that we’re a liberal democratic republic, one of the things that we get is a kind of liberation from the need for everyone to approach politics as a vocation,” McCarty said. “That’s a choice that we’ve made in modern liberal democracy. We could make a different kind of choice as a society, but that’s the choice that we’ve made. And I kind of like that choice. I think it’s okay that our society has space for people who really want to be involved in politics, and people who really don’t.”
With the craze around midterm election season, many are engaging with the less-frequent electoral mode. Students share their expectations of this indirect democratic power.
USD senior Owen Mink shared what is important to him when giving power to representatives.
“I think sticking to formalities [is important],” Mink argued. “When the U.S. was created and all the ideas it was built on, it kind of hit the nail on the head for the most part. I’m uncomfortable with giving any politician, let alone the president, unlimited power.”
USD senior Dominic Szalmas shared his thoughts on what he expects from the government.
“I want [people] to have more information on what’s going on behind the scenes when our leaders are making decisions,”
Szalmas said. “Going all the way from the president down to representatives for each state … Knowledge is power.”
The U.S. may be moving away from midterm election season, but its people are still political actors. McCarty commented on democratic life outside of elections.
“To say that we’re engaging with democracy only when we vote would be like saying, I’m only a husband on date night,”
McCarty argued. “What I learned from [Alexis de] Tocqueville especially is that democracy is a way of life. Which is to say, yes democracy is me voting, sure. But it’s also me being a neighbor. And it’s also me being a parent at my kids’ school … I like to think that instead of voting being the way I do democracy, that the way I vote and the fact that I vote emerges out of me practicing democracy as a way of life.”
Alexis de Tocqueville, author of “Democracy in America,” argued that democratic society is healthy when it has what he calls “healthy mores,” not merely just laws and institutions. This means healthy values, habits and modes of engagement with each other. It requires thinking about what it means to be a member of a community rather than a distinct, isolated person separate from everybody else.
USD junior Lucca Adams shares what he believes a people’s government looks like.
“A people led government is when people come together, and they decide what’s best for the people around them,” Adams said. “They have different perspectives and different ideologies, and they use that to formulate a government that can fulfill as many needs as those people would want.”
USD senior Lexie Langberg, a political science student and Writing Center consultant, commented on the spaces she finds herself engaging with democracy in.
“During our Writing Center workshops, we are all collectively in a group talking and gathering ideas to try to get to somewhere better for the student writers, but there isn’t one sort of distinct solution that we’re trying to come to,” Langberg said.
“I think if you feel like you’re part of a group where you’re confident enough to use your voice and speak and be heard, then that confidence can go into other sectors of your life, as well.
That could be actual politics and using your voice on political issues, or in other sorts of civic groups … the whole point is to make us more democratic citizens, because if you know what’s going on in society, then you can act in ways to address that.”
Terminology may be second then, to the democratic spirit that people find within themselves. While the term democracy can refer to the various characteristics and modes of engagement found within the system, these ideas seem to be rooted in the notion that each person is one of the many members that make up “the people” of a nation.
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