[willguest]

I see it as a preoccupation with the act of voting, in place of actual decision making. Incompetence disguised by paperwork is common feature, especially when the problem feel intractable but there is pressure to "get results".

Rules, protocol and regs are obviously necessary to some extent, but it feels like (in Europe, at least) the map has been confused with the terrain. Overly burdensome protocols are fuel for inaction and hand-wringing and, not very surprisingly, private interests have learnt to take advantage of this (e.g. lawfare)

It is tempting to adopt a "drain the swamp" mentality, but we should remember that swamps are ecosystems too.

[nashashmi]

The illusion of power coming from voting that stops the reform. But more importantly, the transparency of the process yet opaqueness of the processors both dampens activism/revolt against the system while simultaneously reducing activism/revolution within the system.

The steady hand becomes the ruler.