The Material Rituals of the Liberal Democratic State

For voters, the electoral process begins with a number of candidates being presented through the news media and campaign advertising. For politicians, there is no particular reason for them to be interested in interrogating who these voters are or why they are offering their support. People who occupy different positions within the system of production appear in electoral politics as undifferentiated citizens. The atomized individual voting decisions of US citizens are transformed by archaic, anti-democratic electoral alchemy into the collective will of the American people.