I tend to agree that speed is a key issue, but so is bandwidth. Democracy by itself is meaningless and valueless. It becomes useful or not based on the systems

I tend to agree that speed is a key issue, but so is bandwidth. Democracy by itself is meaningless and valueless. It becomes useful or not based on the systems, institutions, expectations it mediates. I think that with the advent of digital media, many parts of the system have (specifically parts of the electorate) been rendered non-functional by overload. With a firehose of issues, there is insufficient time for organization, solution seeking, and consensus building. So yes, slow down the signal, but also prioritize to prevent political and cultural DDOS.