I think it's happening not because of issues with democracy in general but with how the European Union's democracy and the US voting system are organized. I thi

I think it's happening not because of issues with democracy in general but with how the European Union's democracy and the US voting system are organized. I think both systems lead to people feeling like they cannot influence politics. The European Unions's system is fairly complicated, the elections get fairly little media attention and the EU gets regularly used as a scape goat by local politicians. I think the EU could benefit from some prominent, direct elections. For example voting for a EU president directly with a proper campaign would increase awareness and perceived choice. The US election system is just plain awful. The winner takes all crap just had terrible properties. Due to the spoiler effect you end up with a two part system. That's especially nasty with the other problem. The weight of an individual's vote matters vastly by where you live. If you live in a state in which everybody agrees with you your vote likely is irrelevant. The fact that everybody around you agrees with you makes a loss very frustrating and leads to people likely encouraging each other's frustration and creates hatred on those other states. I wish we could get rid of the electoral college and have approval voting. I truly believe that would be the best thing that could happen to the US. The political discourse would most likely become much more interesting and civil.