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As democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts desire at last, and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and complete narcissistic moron. H. L. Mencken, The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920

Democracy across the West is not very well. It cant be described as just resting. Any stress-test of a democracy could justifiably use the election of leaders of the calibre of Johnson and Trump as a criterion of failure. In America, Donald Trump has actively worked to undermine and dismantle the democratic fabric of his country. He boasts of his law breaking and tax avoidance, brags of his achievements in the field of sexual assault, lies, spreads conspiracy theories, gives his backing to miracle cures that are in fact lethal, attempts to interfere with the process of voting and to exclude his opponents votes from the count, elicits the help of states hostile to the interests of his own country and deliberately issues statements intended to incite proud armed militias. In this he is assisted by wealthy, illiberal power-grabbing backers and powerful sections of the media, owned by the rich to serve the rich.

Ditto for the UK. Here, as across the pond, the extremists of the right have gained power by realising that in order to win, all they have to do is break democratic norms and standards. By trampling these they are freed from the inconvenient shackles of truth-telling and from commitments to promote the well-being and prosperity of the people.

In this, they hold democratic values, and the electorate itself, in contempt. Nowhere was the contempt for the electorate illustrated more obscenely than when Dominic Cummings tried to excuse his lockdown trip to Barnard Castle. And why wouldnt he be confident that, in the Britain of today, hed get away with it? After all, he, along with Johnson, Gove and others, was instrumental in shaping that Britain via a Brexit formed out of lies, misleading statements, dog-whistle, xenophobic falsehoods and empty, meaningless promises.

Between them they engineered the shutting down of parliament and made clear their willingness to break international law, while those who gave legal opinion on the question of prorogation were condemned as traitors, saboteurs and enemies of the people. As in America, our leaders lead usinescapably to the conclusion that there is something seriously wrong with the democracy that put them there.

It is often said that our democracy should more accurately be termed an elective dictatorship. We get to elect our dictators every few years and thats about it. Hardly healthy. But the reality is far worse. These dictators often get elected on a minority vote and enact policies which have no majority support. Brexit, for example.

So why is our democracy so unfit for purpose? Why is it that we can elect leaders who are little more than self-serving schemers, whose contempt for the electorate renders them incapable of giving straight, honest answers to even the most straightforward, reasonable questions? Its not as if any of these qualities have been smuggled in under our noses. They are paraded before our eyes every single day. Nobody voting for Johnson or Trump could be blind to the fact that they are serial liars. And yet they voted all the same. Why?

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Mencken was on to something when suggesting that the leaders we get, the leaders we deserve, closely represent something dark in the inner soul of the people. Theres no easy way to put this the problem with democracy is the voters. The voters simply arent good enough to support a healthy democracy. Theyre not up to the job. Now I know some will think: a snowflake-remainer-lefty-loser will always blame th e voters just as a bad workman always blames his tools. But these tools are shot.

Consider this: a poll in 2005 found that 21 per cent of Americans believe in witches and 9 per cent that spirits can take control of a person. In 1999, 18 per cent believed the sun revolves around the earth so much for the science and in 2000, 31 per cent believed in ghosts, and increase of 20 percentage points since 1978.

By 2019, the year before Trumps re-election attempt, significant numbers believed in the illuminati, Big-foot and a flat earth. Ghost-belief had risen to 45 per cent, as had the belief in demons. Belief in vampires stood at a fangtastic 13 per cent.

Britain has nothing to be proud of. While 33 per cent of us believe in ghosts and 18 per cent in demonic possession, a whopping 52 per cent of us believe that you can magically make a false claim true simply by writing it on the side of a bus.

In elective dictatorships where small margins have huge consequences wed better get used to the fact that (possibly small) groups with stupid ideas and a lack of relevant knowledge and skills can have a disproportionate effect on the lives of the rest of us.

A I have argued previously in TheArticle, Leave voters in the EU referendum did not know what they were voting for. It is also pretty clear that too many British voters showed themselves to be gullible swallowers of laughably simplistic solutions and explanations. They came to believe in manufactured problems and they fell for the tricks of ad hominem persuasion and the cult of personality. In short, too many voters failed to make a sensible political choice in their own interests and which also respected the interests of others. For too many, the distance between giving an up-yours the establishment through casual, self-indulgent voting and losing their livelihoods has been very short. It is a tragedy.

The deceivers know their public well, hence their contempt, which is manifested in an openness about their own lying. They dont even try to cover it up anymore. In this they feed off general, public cynicism about politicians and their motives, a cynicism which our current crop of leaders has worked hard to nurture.

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What is to be done? The central virtue of democracy proves to be its greatest weakness. Because all votes count the same, democracy offers no incentive for self-improvement. It enshrines intellectual complacency and ignorance. One answer to this is that if dumb voters are the problem, maybe dumb people shouldnt be allowed to vote. If you want to take part in the democratic process then you really should know what you are doing. Anything less is simply irresponsible.

The idea that only the knowers should be allowed to vote, the epistocracy, runs through Plato and J S Mill, and has recently been championed by the American philosopher Jason Brennan in his book Against Democracy.

Whatever else one might think of it, an epistocracy at least has the merit of rational justification for its franchise limitations; unlike other examples from the recent history of our democracy such as exclusion on grounds of class or gender and our current, entirely arbitrary exclusion on grounds of age. Far from being anti-democratic, as its critics suggest, an epistocracy can be seen as the purest form of democracy. A democracy open to all, regardless of age, gender, class, religion or race, provided they show themselves to be fit to participate.

Consequently, the primary question becomes: how might we determine fitness for democratic participation? Brennan favours giving people a test. A sort of qualifying exam, passing which earns the candidate a license to take responsibility for their political views in the hustle and bustle of democratic decision making. It qualifies them to influence decisions which affect the lives of others and serves to protect the public from unskilled tyros.

Instead of a test, Mill views our established social and cultural structures as providing the best indicator of qualification for democratic participation. Mill suggests that everyone should get a vote, but, depending on an individuals position in society, some people should have more votes than others. Mills is a sort of meritocratic democracy.

Of course, there are serious problems with all this. Mills reward-by-position would only ossify prevailing social structures. Covid has led to a sharp reappraisal of the importance of roles as diverse as care-workers, nurses, pub staff, delivery drivers and so on. Mills scheme would not have stood up to Covid. Nor does it explicitly work to ensure the quality of a democracy. With appropriate weighting, a fascist state could be made to run on Mills method. As could Putins form of Russian democracy.

The all too obvious problem with Brennans exam-driven alternative is: Who sets the test? Now I dont think this is as great a problem as some critics might believe, but Im not going to argue the case here because there is a much bigger, practical obstacle. It is all fine and dandy when newly enfranchised groups are celebrating the acquisition of their shiny new democratic rights, but what about when you do the reverse and snatch the vote away from people and label them not good enough?

It is possible to do, and in the US, current voter suppression tactics show that it is even possible in a self-styled democracy.

But before going down that route theres an alternative make sure that our people are properly educated. All of them givenan education which places critical thinking at its core. An education that goes out of its way to nurture respect for reason, respect for persons, for truth, for fairness, for justice for these things underpin the democratic process. Explicit political education would also have a role. But it is critical thinking that is the essential ingredient in achieving the goal of a politically literate population. Individuals must be able to pick apart the claims that confront them and their implications. They must be able to spot the fakery and falsehoods that litter the grounds of contemporary politics.

Finland is already well ahead in this effort to educate a critically aware and capable population. This has been largely in reaction to the Russian disinformation programmes of the previous decade. In the UK and US, however, we have a problem in that so recent untruths have come from our own governments.

I can hear the screaming now. Educational programmes such as those sketched here will be attacked as indoctrination or brainwashing, or, even worse as progressive. But as Neil Postman, author of Teaching as a Subversive Activity said:

The best things schools can do for kids is to help them learn how to distinguish useful talk from bullsh*t. I think almost all serious people understand that about 90 per cent of all that goes on in school is practically useless, so what I am saying would not require the displacement of anything that is especially worthwhile. Even if it did, I would still be able to argue that helping kids to activate their crap-detectors should take precedence over any other legitimate educational aim.

Subversive? Yes. The last thing most governments want is an interested, critically-thinking, lie-detecting, politically literate population. Political extremism grows through ignorance and by offering the snake-oil of easy answers to simplified questions. And so we are led by people who can, with impunity, run the country on extraordinary claims about bleach and Brexit, immigrants and eye-tests.

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The problem with democracy it's you - TheArticle