[webmobdev]

> Like in the US, democracy in the United Kingdom is faltering.

This is unfortunately not unique. India too has seen the rise of the right, and its democracy threatened and at a perilous stage. Many other countries have seen the rise of the right too. However, I feel this is a political pattern that can be observed historically and generationally, where the political spectrum switch between extremes of left and right, with brief periods of centrism. This can be observed in the last century too. The hard question is how long will this political effect last before we see it wane. Another question is how much the internet contributed to this and if we can do anything about it without trampling our rights.

[mjfl]

"democracy is under threat when people I don't like are democratically elected." Is it invisible to you how such statements are, themselves, bad for democracy?

[rconti]

"democracy is under threat when people ~I don't like~ who advocate the overturn of democracy are elected"

FTFY.

[refurb]

You include Hilary Clinton in that? When she called Trump an “illegitimate president”?

[weard_beard]

We treat speech differently based on context. Yelling fire in the middle of the ocean with no one around is legally distinct from yelling fire in a crowded theater.

I would argue that without the intent or ability to act in a dangerous manner that this speech is legally distinct from the same statement with those qualifiers.

The realities of limited resources in our judicial system and common sense require us to make these distinctions.

The difference here, in my mind, is that Hillary Clinton was not able or intending to spur a grassroots coup that was dangerous to our Democracy based on her statements.

[refurb]

Why do you read Hilary’s comments in the best possible light and Trump’s in the worst?

Why the double standard?

Either calling into question our electoral system is ok or not ok.

It’s important we hold all people accountable equally.

[mjfl]

You really are not grasping how ubiquitously this concept is used. Biden has declared democratically elected people like Georgia Meloni and Victor Orban, and candidates like Marine le Pen to be dangers to democracy. It certainly isn't restricted to Trump. The fact that you jump to him shows how blind you are.

[int_19h]

Democratically elected people can absolutely be a danger to democracy. I remember when Russia democratically elected Putin. In 5 years, all opposition TV channels were owned by the government and the oligarchs that chose subserviency over prison. In 10 years, elections were so blatantly fraudulent that voting became pointless.

[mjfl]

Yeah but you don't see the problem with trying to influence the elections in Italy by obviously bad comparison between Georgia Meloni and Putin?

[int_19h]

I don't see it as a bad comparison. Putin wasn't eating babies when he was first elected, either; but his background gave ample reasons for concern, which some people did voice at the time, and which was fully realized eventually.

[Silhouette]

The problem is that in many Western systems the people who gain power aren't democratically elected.

In a real democracy the big challenge should be how to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. However most of us aren't even getting that far because the people who gain power often don't even have the support or even acceptance of the majority.

[gernb]

You said

> In a real democracy the big challenge should be how to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority

But isn't that exactly what's happening? The minority (red) won against the majority (blue).

[kibwen]

The grandparent is simplifying. The goal of a democracy is to respect the will of the majority while respecting the fundamental rights of the minority. If you're not doing the first step, respecting the will of the majority, then your democracy has already failed. A tyranny of the minority is strictly worse than a tyranny of the majority.

[mathnmusic]

> A tyranny of the minority is strictly worse than a tyranny of the majority.

Not if the minority opinion is right. The ground truth matters.

[rayiner]

The whole point of democracy is that we don’t agree on what’s “the truth” and who is “right” and need a process for deciding what to do notwithstanding those disagreements.

[kibwen]

Okay, how do you decide which opinion is right? Perhaps we'll... vote on it? You do see the problem here, yes?

[Silhouette]

We're talking about politics and democracy here. People will always have a diverse range of opinions on political issues where none of those opinions is objectively "right".

Hopefully one opinion that most would agree on is that in matters of fact any competent representative should pay attention to the knowledge and advice of experts.

[rayiner]

> In a real democracy the big challenge should be how to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority.

Protection of minorities has nothing to do with democracy, and is often anti-Democratic. In the west, minorities are increasingly being invoked by elites as pretexts for strengthening anti-Democratic institutions and overruling majorities.

[wizofaus]

Can you give an example? I'd suggest protections against "tyranny of the majority"/"mob rule" are a cornerstone feature of any successful democracy. The point is to ensure that it's not possible simply by force of numbers alone to elect governments who then enforce laws and implement policies that could significantly disadvantage any minority group.

[rayiner]

The US Supreme Court is a good example. It sits as an elite Guardian Council that over the last century has overruled the public on numerous issues, ranging from contraception to abortion to same sex marriage to the death penalty. These rulings are not based on law but rather moral philosophy—specifically the libertarian moral philosophy of elites.

Protection of minorities is not a necessary feature of democracy. It’s a feature of a specific type of democracy. In the American system, it’s a feature that initially arose because elites sought to protect their property rights from the masses through constitutional checks on democracy.

Shadi Hamid at the Brookings Institute has done excellent work distinguishing “democracy” from “liberal democracy.” https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/us-democra...

[wizofaus]

Are you claiming overturning abortion laws was done on the pretext of protecting foetuses (who are a minority)?

[Silhouette]

Protection of minorities has nothing to do with democracy, and is often anti-Democratic.

Exactly. And that means protecting minorities from abuse - particularly abuse caused by short-term or ill-informed policy making by politicians - is the big challenge facing any political system based on representative democracy. But before you can get that far you first need to have your representatives democratically elected in the first place and most of us don't right now.

In the west, minorities are increasingly being invoked by elites as pretexts for strengthening anti-Democratic institutions and overruling majorities.

Careful. Relatively few policies implemented by Western governments actually have a clear, verifiable majority of the public in support of them. For that you essentially need either a referendum or a clear result electing representatives on an explicit platform of implementing that policy and where that policy is known to be the deciding factor in voters' choice of representative.

For everything else in a representative democracy we elect our representatives usually based on some very narrow set of priorities and yet those representatives are entrusted with deciding on any government policy that requires a decision throughout their term of office. There is a very long tail of minor issues that can still profoundly affect the lives of many people yet where the representatives making the decisions certainly were not elected based on their position on those particular issues. Even on major issues situations will inevitably change during the term of office of elected representatives and their response to any emergency was almost certainly not something voters had an opportunity to consider before making their choice at the last election.

Representative democracy has obvious practical advantages over requiring direct democracy for every little decision any government ever makes but it also implies limitations on the democratic mandate granted to representatives and by extension on the legitimacy of any actions those representatives take on behalf of their electorate. Strong checks and balances are essential to keep representative democracy democratic. One common safeguard is to have constitutional rules about the most important policies where the powers of any current representatives to act in those areas are limited without going back to their electorate for a specific decision to change the foundational rules. Another is having a power of recall so that if the voters who elected a representative are unhappy with their actions then they can require a fresh election that might choose a different representative instead. Crucially both of those safeguards ultimately depend on an explicit decision by the entire electorate, which can and should be more powerful in a democracy than any decision by elected representatives.

[JPKab]

When my side wins, democracy is healthy and vibrant. When the other side wins, it's faltering and corrupt.

[bojan]

Looking from outside, it honestly doesn't seem that's what's going on. Here in the Netherlands we have proportional representation, and while our democratic system does show signs of decay, it still feels way more healthier than the British one. Here we have 20 parties to choose from, which always leads to coalitions and compromises. Having to keep deciding between only two would feel incredibly constrained to me.

And I say this as someone who keeps voting, unsuccessfully, against our incumbent PM.

[rayiner]

What you’re seeing in India is democracy in action. Modi has the highest approval rating of any major world leader, nearly 80%: https://morningconsult.com/global-leader-approval. What you’re seeing is the majority of Indians overthrowing the minority of British-educated secular liberals that have ruled India since independence.

This is an excellent analysis of what’s happening in India: https://unherd.com/2021/04/the-culture-wars-of-post-colonial... (“The last of the post-partition generations are passing on, to be replaced by an indigenous leadership class more parochial and rooted in the subcontinent. The modern Indian culture war is a reflection of the decline of a once-secure, outward-looking cosmopolitan Western elite in the face of a rising Hindu nationalist movement, one that is relatively insular and inward looking. India is maturing, becoming culturally more self-confident, and shedding its post-colonial skin.”).

[webmobdev]

> What you’re seeing in India is democracy in action. Modi has the highest approval rating of any major world leader ...

If you think democracy is only about winning elections, then Hitler was a great democrat too.

> India is maturing, becoming culturally more self-confident, and shedding its post-colonial skin.

You mean the current indian leaders prefer to live in the past, fantasising about its glorious history while preferring to blame all its misgivings on "foreigners" to repress their feelings of insecurity with an equally dysfunctional sense of superiority complex?