[saretired]

Except that cases are hardly rare where a small minority party becomes crucial for forming a government and winds up wielding power far beyond its numerical support among the population. And its not rare for countries to be unable to form a government for months or even years.

[Eupolemos]

That's probably because their system is flawed.

In Denmark, we never have to wait for long. Whenever those in power want to pass something big or important in parliament, they seek a broad support - otherwise, it'll just get repealed whenever they lose power.

Everything certainly isn't perfect here (yes, it can be darn annoying when center parties hold too much power - but then again, it is a stabilizing factor), but healthy mechanics can get you a long way with democracy.

I feel a lot of people in this thread point out cases where democracy doesn't work. That's easy. But maybe it would be better to look for cases where it does work and learn from it.

[douche]

Part of the problem with the US is that it is just so damned big and so diverse. I' not sure democracy scales well.

To take your example of Denmark; Denmark has less population, and half again as much area as Massachusetts. Comparisons between the US as a whole, and individual European countries don't always make the most sense; the more appropriate comparison would be to the EU, to have the same kind of multitudes of disparate people under a common banner.

[794CD01]

It's much easier to agree on which cases are failures than which ones are successful.

[eli_gottlieb]

God forbid society should invest in the interests of small minorities occasionally to win their support for the majority interest?