Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.

Vidal’s aphorism is a sardonic indictment of electoral politics when it becomes more spectacle than substance. He suggests that “democracy” can be reduced to a ritual of frequent, expensive elections that fail to present meaningful policy choices (“without issues”) and offer candidates who are effectively indistinguishable (“interchangeable”). The line targets the influence of money, media, and party machinery in narrowing debate and homogenizing political elites, implying that formal democratic procedures can persist even as genuine popular sovereignty and accountability erode. It also echoes Vidal’s broader skepticism about American political culture, where he often argued that empire, corporate power, and entrenched institutions limit real democratic agency.