Our astute British friend Roger has penned an excellent piece on the difficulties in maintaining a democracy (see link below). There is a great line from the climax of the movie “The American President,” where Michael Douglas’ character says during a speech “Democracy is advanced citizenship; you have to want it real bad.” Roger’s piece compelled me to think of this line and write this comment which I have copied here.
One of the greatest challenges of democracy is it requires the citizens to be well-informed. There are three missiles being fired at our ability to be informed, the worst one is the first one.
1) we care more about entertainment and sports news than more serious news. I have long referred to my country as the United States of Entertainment. We just don’t care to know.
2) we have candidates and a one party, in particular, attacking the media and institutions, where the truth might exist. The strategy is, if all sources are perceived as lying, then it gives more impunity to the real liars.
3) the misinformers, disinformers and conspiracy nuts are having a field day getting read with the two above occurrences. To someone like Putin, it is shooting fish in a barrel.
The truth matters, in general, but especially to a democracy. The people who want to squelch the democracy are the ones who believe in an unstated but real cause – give more money to rich people and help them keep it. It is easier to do that in a more autocratic environment. Yet, what these folks fail to realize is until it is too late, their ability to keep it will depend on how obsequious they are to the autocrat.
musingsofanoldfart 