It was known to the Attic Greeks that democracy had a fatal bug: a system that entrusts ultimate authority to the masses will predictably privilege persuasion over knowledge, passion over judgment, and populism over excellence.
It just couldn't be exploited effectively until now. Thanks, Mark and Elon.
Politics isn't Newton's Third Law of Motion. Prior to Musk's takeover, there absolutely and unequivocally was no "equal but opposite" deliberately biased system in place like there is now.
This is a classic playbook in U.S. politics. Conservative media gins up a conspiracy theory (e.g., Hollywood is biased, universities are biased, mainstream media is biased, social media is biased, etc. etc.) and then they use these imaginary foes as justification for actual retribution. There was no purposeful and systematic bias at Twitter under Jack Dorsey (himself, a pretty conservative character, having backed Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr in the past election, both of whom both now work in the Trump administration).
No, mass media had been around much longer than just a couple years.
But also, that bug is why our government was initially set up with the structure it was. And why you'll occasionally see complaints about parts of the structure being "undemocratic".
It was set up the way it was because the founders didn't trust voters. Voters don't always make optimal choices. Nobody said democracy was perfect. It's just a lot better than every other system we've ever tried. Benevolent dictatorship is good in theory, but quite rare in practice.
> Nobody said democracy was perfect. It's just a lot better than every other system we've ever tried.
This has bugged me for a long time: Why do people repeat this ?
I mean this on the fundamental core of it: not on the merit of the argument[0], or whether people deeply believe it, but on making the argument in these terms in the first place.
I don't remember people running around saying Christianism isn't perfect, but better than every other religion _we tried_. Or using the same rhetoric for Object Oriented programming. Or touting as a mantra that frying chicken isn't perfect but better than every other cooking method we tried.
IMHO we usually don't do that kind of vague, but short and definitive assertion. The statements would usualy be stronger with specific limitations, or an opening for what we don't know yet. Why did it take this form in particular for political system? (I am aware of the starting quote, but it wouldn't have caught on if people didn't see a need to repeat it in the first place. I think it hit on a very fundamental need of people, and I wish I knew why)
I feel understanding that would give insights on why we're stuck where we are now.
[0] We're two centuries in western democracies, and many other regimes lasted longer than that. I personally don't think there is any definitive answer that could bring such strong statements, but that's not my point.
> The statements would usualy be stronger with specific limitations, or an opening for what we don't know yet. Why did it take this form in particular for political system?
It's claiming an empirical fact, rather than pure opinion (cooking preferences) or a fact with a well-characterized theory behind it (OOP, anything physics, ...).
The phrasing is way too blurry for it to be a reasonable fact. The original quote came from a politician, and how people convey it today are as vague as it was initially.
For instance, thinking for a minute about "who". Who are we talking about and who is judging the results ? When did the experiments happen and what do we actually know about it ? On the "what", What other forms are we referring to ? What period are looking at ? etc.
It would be the same for the theory. Which well know political theory do you see related to this ? Political science doesn't deal in "better" or "worse", and I'm not even sure there is any consensus on the different systems.
IMHO, the more you think about it the stranger it becomes. I invite more people to get on the journey.
Again: yes, of course. But mass media wasn't enough. See also the other comment about religion. That wasn't enough to bring it down, either. Democracy was still viable -- still the best way forward -- despite the best efforts of preachers, popes, and publishers.
But it can't survive social media, which has turned us into an archipelago of competing cults.
Most of the population was disenfranchised in those examples. Peasants, slaves, urban poor and women generally weren't allowed to vote. Some very brief exceptions aside, universal suffrage only really emerged about 100-200 years ago (like you said). But clean elections without some kind of elite manipulation have arguably been nonexistent or extremely rare.
Rant aside, I'm curious where you pin the start of this.