[eapressoandcats]

Democracy is a tricky thing. It’s not as simple as “whatever the majority of people wants, goes”, and has always been recognized as such.

Classical liberalism requires certain rights and protections to every member of society in ways they could be perceived as “anti democratic” if for example a minority group is widely hated.

Generally speaking all of this requires some level of rules and forbearance, and a political “playing field” where disputes can be ironed out.

Part of what is required for this to work is a shared epistemology. This has historically been provided by journalist and academic elites, but it the thing that is being eroded by social media.

The problem is now everyone can choose their own reality, but that reality may just be completely not true. This was a well known phenomenon on the right but it’s happening a lot more on the left as well, with it being taken as a fact that everyone in the US is poor and struggling even though that is not true at all.

The net effect of this is that “charismatic” reactionary parties that are detached from reality perform better, because memeing wins elections better than doing things for constituents. The link was always a bit tenuous but now it’s completely broken and we’re seeing the rise of anti intellectual parties everywhere.