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>To be fair, death-by-voter is a fairly common way for democracies to die, so—putting aside what that may or may not justify from a policy perspective, the sent
by coldtea 2y ago
>To be fair, death-by-voter is a fairly common way for democracies to die, so—putting aside what that may or may not justify from a policy perspective, the sentiment isn’t silly. Voters really are one of the greatest dangers to democracy, that’s just true.
This judgement requires assuming an external position that "knows better", which is inherently incompatible with democracy. Voters can't be a danger to democracy by definition, even if they vote to end democracy and elect a strongman, well, that was their democratic wish.
I think democracies usually die because of the incompetence of party leaders, policy advisors, and primarily elites. Often the public tries to pivot away from that incompetence by voting, but always get politicians backtracking on their promises (and have no resource, given most not-exactly-direct-democratic election systems, to punish them until the next elections, and not for the things they backtracked or failed on - they had to do it for everything).