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And yet we still have laws surrounding what constitutes fair participation in the election. If those laws are grossly violated and the candidate wins… then wha
by stouset 2y ago
And yet we still have laws surrounding what constitutes fair participation in the election.
If those laws are grossly violated and the candidate wins… then what? “Sorry nothing we can do” just means you’re a sucker if you follow the rules.
All the last decade has shown me is that democracy is far more fragile than any of us really realized. Populations are frighteningly easy to mislead and misinform en masse. Enough voters to swing most elections vote primarily on vibes more than anything resembling a coherent or informed political philosophy.
Drought caused food prices to rise? Better kick out the current guy. Random weakening of our biggest trade partner’s currency causing lower prices of goods? The current guy is a genius!
- rayiner 2y ago> All the last decade has shown me is that democracy is far more fragile than any of us really realized. Populations are frighteningly easy to mislead and misinform en mass This is absolutely the wrong lesson to take away from the events of the last decade. The whole point of democracy is that we don’t have a priestly class that gets to impose their views by fiat, like the Brahmins of ancient India.
- stouset 2y agoI’m not saying what we have isn’t an improvement on that. But it’s also maybe uncomfortably closer to that than we’re willing to admit to ourselves. And it is terrifyingly fragile. Spread the right kind of vibes and misinformation and you can get enough of the population to believe anything. Hell, upset enough people and they’ll start to do it themselves. We’ve already seen several countries essentially vote themselves into dictatorships based on misinformation. This may have been a near miss.