Democracy in 2019

[version]

How do you feel about it at the moment? Do you feel confident in its future? How do you feel about election cycles? Should they be shorter/longer?

[version]

This article on Five Star's 'digital populism' and manipulation of direct democracy in Italy was something of an eyeopener for me and quite concerning.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...-star-movement

Building the Brexit party: how Nigel Farage copied Italy's digital populists

The former Ukip leader forged an alliance with the Five Star Movement just as they bulldozed Italian politics using a tightly controlled digital operation. And now he’s putting their techniques to work in Britain.

[luka]

Trumps impact has been enormous in terms of emboldening leaders to discard norms and niceties. World-changing.

[Leo]

I've always been envious about how your election campaign period in the UK is so brief. we get people on the campaign trail 2+ years in advance, some would say Bernie sanders never stopped campaigning after the last election cycle, rolling into year 5 or 6.

[Leo]

as Churchill said: “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried”

recent developments seem to have brought to the surface how corrupt democracy can be, probably always been that way but not to the extent of today with trump as the shining example. we always suspected a small group of rich powerful elites pulled the strings behind the curtain, now it's become plain as day.

[Leo]

people tend to hold democracy dear until, in their minds, an extreme group mobilizes to cast a majority vote. I'll bet many democracy-loving folks in the UK believe Brexit was too important a decision to be made by the uninformed and easily misled general voting population.

[comelately]

As much as Remainers, such as myself, can say perfectly rationally and with a straight face 'twas an advisory referendum' and the like - there is something nonetheless troubling about it, and one feels like a door is being opened that can never be closed. In Brexit, there are no virgins.

[comelately]

It feels like we're all somewhere between Sir Humphrey and the Georgian version of Blackadder now........

[comelately]

Remainiacs with a knowledge of politics in the last 20 years have few options. What's 'needed' is a High Liberalism disentangled from New Labour and the Orange Book Liberals - seems like a fantasy. Many look to the much-maligned European bureaucrats wistfully, and are willing to cheer the idea of an Empire of Europe.