Quote:
Originally Posted by The Batlord
It's basically the same question. Representative democracy is a terrible form of government because people are stupid and easily led sheep just waiting for the right manipulator to herd them in a certain direction. Representative democracy's only real benefit after you cast off all the propaganda bull**** about "will of the people" and "freedom" is that elected officials have to at least consider the will of the people when deciding policy. And when politics have become as polarized and consumed by identity politics as they are now even that benefit is dubious at best because the will of the people can become so co-opted that it is essentially just the will of the manipulator.
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It's a good point. I've discussed this with multiple people in real life and they all claim - "Oh yeah, when I go and vote, I vote with the best information. I spend a lot of time researching to determine who I think is best". I'm always a little underwhelmed by this, and suffice it to say, I don't believe them.
I think most people (if I had to put a number on it, I'd say....85%), when they are in that voting booth, with no one watching, they vote with their feelings and with their emotions. Is that a bad thing? I don't know - I lean towards it not being a good thing, but then again, even if you know every single position and promise of a candidate, most of them don't come even moderately close to keeping those positions/promises (e.g. "Read my lips, no new taxes!" or "He kept us out of the war!" [Woodrow Wilson]). To Bat's point, media and propoganda play an outsized role in our elections.