| We all know that. It was always true. The point of real democracy (versus what I call model/book democracy) is to extract useful value from fallible individuals while preventing them to do too much harm (like seizing too much power). The better questions are then: * Is it getting worse? * Are politicians more preoccupied with their interests than in the past? * Is it because it is easier now to manufacture misinformation? * Is it because people vote for parties and not for individual politicians? * Is having less focus on individual character an inevitable result of polarization of society? * Would more truthful and unbiased news coverage help? * Would more education on the principles of civic life help people make better voting decisions? * Is technology causing general disease of attention deficit and focus problem on the scale of entire society causing it to make worse decisions overall? |