How do you feel about democracy?

[Biden his time]

I oppose direct democracy because you can't expect voters to make informed decisions on every issue and they are often swayed by fear-mongering-style campaigning. Just imagine if America had a national referendum on abortion, do we expect most people to listen to the facts or vote based on pre-conceived notions.

Ahh, so you don't trust the people? You think you're better than them? I see how it is...

Get 'im, boys.  

/s if you can't tell

[Blue3]

This has probably already been said... but there needs to be something between "Swiss style direct democracy" and "maintain current system."

[ElectionsGuy]

Democracy is great when the person I vote for wins. But when the person I don't vote for wins, democracy is under attack.

[beaver2.0]

We should have an H.L. Hunt style democracy.

[Coolface’s actual roommate]

Democracy is great when the person I vote for wins. But when the person I don't vote for wins, democracy is under attack.

This x100

[Former President tack50]

I unironically oscillate between options 5 and 8 depending on my mood lol

Very hypothetically, the "ideal" form of government in my mind would be some sort of unelected technocratic government, that gets its priorities sorted out via referendums and then must work on implementing said priorities.

 Needless to say this government is so idealistic and has so many points of failure that I don't even know where to start. So I'll keep the current system as the least bad option

[LAKISYLVANIA]

The problem with democracy is that people aren't always right and that people often are just flocks of sheeps often, and that the media controls for a large majority of them what to think and what to believe in.

I like to believe in full democracy, but if a majority people like to be racist or destroy human rights, does a democracy still make sense than. I do not trust the majority of people. So basically 5 and 8 at the same time, i'll lean to option 5 due to experiencing the covidcracy like i call it.

Maybe Churchill's quote applies, and you can have a good democracy and a bad democracy just like you can have a good dictatorship (but there are few) and a bad dictatorship, but i don't trust the popular opinion of people anymore. It's like they already have given up and do not care about human rights in general.

One that is 100% overrated is 'free media" and journalism. "Free media" is a myth that does not exist. They control what one should think, even in a "democracy".

Perhaps democracy isn't the issue, but the media is.

And if you think i'm crazy, the US media is also no good in this. Like imagine if all media was similar to FOX news, would you like the media? Or if all news behaved similar like CNN. Why did "Trump's fake news" accusations work? I know he only used it, when it was used against him (if there was fake news in favour of him, it isn't fake news anymore suddenly).

But the US is different in that it has more commercialized news outlets and from the entire political spectrum, and that's not the case here, although the major news outlets are often concerning as well.

Films like Nightcrawler, Network and especially Don't Look Up highlight the issue, and that's the issue we feel have. And Don't Look Up criticizes the political power of the media enormously, and how they became a shadow of what they once used to be in terms of being FF.

The media today is arrogant, corrupt, elitist and play along with politicians (in the US of all political spectra, in Europe or at least only ONE side in particular). And it feels like they've become anti-people. Their power is that huge that I think the media might be the biggest threat we face today challenging our values, freedom & human rights.

A solution could be challenging the majority of news outlets, major news outlets and social platform to the human rights council and cooperating together to create a "treaty" which establishes a new standard for fair journalism that abandons commercialism, favouritism, sensationalism with no political gains or goals and the commitment to fully objective reporting from an international point of view (not a country point of view), reforming the entire idea of journalism and news and perhaps also the internet.

The media is a lot to blame for the increased polarization, for the way Republicans today are, without the media there wouldn't have been a president Trump and way more issues. It is a really an issue. And we need to think about how we want to use (social) media and what it's purpose of life should be and whether it is beneficial for a human's life.

So loud and clear, today the media (incl. social media) is the biggest threat we face in terms of maintaining world stability and the future of our democracy, and i can't be more clear on this, and I hope people will start to face the issue and understand what i'm talking about.

If we don't face the issue in time, democracy will be dead at the end of our lives, ending a similar fate as communism in the 20th century.

And while I used to think a few years ago, this would last a while... i'm increasingly convinced that it might even happen sooner than we think in some countries. The US is a clear candidate where democracy could be dismantled (intact in name, but not in practice) this very decade. In fact i already think it is strained that much that the end is in sight already (and that the democracy does not work anymore in the US, unfortunately). A Russian-style or Putin-style democracy could be the reality quite soon actually.

[Aurelius]

My thoughts on democracy are summed up by the famous Churchill quotes and the Lincoln quote in NC Yankee's signature.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

The short answer is that we need "more democracy", but not in the way in which "more democracy" is traditionally understood.

We emphatically do NOT need to give people more things to vote on. In fact we should probably significantly reduce the number of things people vote on. Direct democracy and the direct election of all sorts of public offices such a judges and cabinet officials in the United States has been an abject failure. It's made government worse on every level, and hasn't empowered citizens in any meaningful way - it's just made it easier for moneyed interests to sway policies to their advantage. Admittedly sometimes it's led to good outcomes (like minimum wage hikes and redistricting commissions) but on the whole it's clearly a failed experiment.

We certainly should make voting more accessible (and even mandatory, ideally, if that could be implemented without negative side-effects). The biggest scandal of American democracy is how few people vote. There are many complex reasons for that, but at least some of the most obvious barriers should obviously be lifted. But beyond how many people vote, there are more fundamental questions we should start asking about how they vote, and how to make the connection between votes and outcomes more tangible to voters. The problem at the core of American democracy is that there's no meaningful connection between the kind of policies voters want and the kind of representation they get. It gets to an almost comical degree where the most #populist politicians are those who support the policies most antithetical to the average voter's values and interests. Solving this fundamental problem is an incredibly thorny issue, and I don't have one clear answer. It probably requires changing both the ways in which people vote (for example moving toward a PR system that more accurately reflects the pluralism of US society), as well as changing the broader environment (notably, the informational environment) in which voters make their choices.

I sort of agree with this, but this seems to be about fixing US democracy, not democracy in general.

Secondly the solution is pretty clear, but ironically finding the popular support or good will in parliament (the house of representatives and senate) is too much of a burden to overcome which is why this won't happen.

PR representation will be opposed by both Democrats and Republicans because it weakens them strongly, and the current rules enacted cannot overcome or fix these issues, and there's no way for a third party to pop up as the media play along the traditional party lines and as people believe there are only two parties that can win, while the hate for the other is so big none of them will consider voting for a more direct democracy.

On top of that, it is incredibly hard to wage a third party campaign and to break the two party system. Lack of financial resources, high threshold for debate participation, lack of media coverage all make this quite hard to do or to accomplish.

The US democracy is not akin to it's time and it leads to several worrying issues, because it enables the current political climate that is highly polarized while the electoral college, the constitution, the supreme court and other democratic measures were actually created during the birth of American democracy, but that's been 250 years ago, and in 250 years, the america's quite changed demographically. There's a rural / urban divide today, america is a far more diverse and far more populated country, people live for a longer time (which makes term limits more relevant today, especially in the supreme court). It isn't adapted to the 21st century. It isn't modernized. In many ways, the current system would have worked just as fine 250 years ago and not lead to issues, but today is a different world.

The world is changing so rapidly that the democratic system is unable to keep up with, like there are so many things that have changed (like internet, social media) and it fails to take that into account which leads to it's destabilization.

People need to realize this is 2022. We cannot read the bible like it's the year zero. We cannot read the constitution like it's the year 1776, and the number of amendments aren't enough.

[Cassandra]

Where's the Dictatorship of the Proletariat option?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Where's the Dictatorship of the Proletariat option?

"Dictatorship of the proletariat" as Marx intended it just means democracy.

"Dictatorship of the proletariat" as Lenin/Stalin/Mao etc. intended it just means dictatorship of Lenin/Stalin/Mao etc.

[Cassandra]

Where's the Dictatorship of the Proletariat option?

"Dictatorship of the proletariat" as Marx intended it just means democracy.

"Dictatorship of the proletariat" as Lenin/Stalin/Mao etc. intended it just means dictatorship of Lenin/Stalin/Mao etc.

😁

Agree to disagree brother

[Middle-aged Europe]

I guess I'm one of those Churchill boys... most voters are dumb as hell and a lot of politicians are corrupt or amoral, but as soon as you switch to a different system, people seem to get locked up and tortured for no reason. Maybe I would like to try out some form of meritocracy, but I'm not sure that this would actually turn out better in the end either.

[Velasco]

I stand for more democracy, which in my view requires not only  that people has the right to vote (automatic registration is the system that ensures this principle). More democracy requires that people has greater and better access to information and services such as health and education, as well as better opportunities for social advancement and personal realization. More democracy is not possible without a notion of citizenship and community,  an adequate balance between individual and collective rights. Gross economic inequality is not compatible with more democracy

I am not very optimistic about democracy in the near future. The trends favor the rise of authoritarianism, oligarchy and technocratic governments