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democracy

Friday 26th of April 2024

1988 Presidential election It was clear for example in 1988 that the politifcal process had already become perilously remote from the electorate it was meant to represent. It was also clear in 1988 that the decision of the two major parties to obscure any possible perceived distinction between themselves, and by so doing to narrow the contested ground to a handful of selected “target” voters, had already imposed considerable strain on the basic principle of the democratic exercise, that of assuring the nation's citizens a voice in its affairs. Joan Didion, Political Fictions © 2017 Kwiple.com
2016 Presidential election Anti-democracy Republican Party leaders including Jason Chaffetz, Trent Franks, Louie Gohmert, Ron Johnson, Peter King, Michael McCaul and James Sensenbrenner, and Fox News dumbass Sean Hannity openly call for a coup d'état by impeachment if Hillary Clinton is elected president © 2016 Kwiple.com
2016 Presidential election Rivals pounce on toxic mood to scorn US democracy — — — — — China, Russia, Iran and even Kyrgyzstan say they have nothing to be jealous about — — — — — headline, Financial Times, November 9, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
2020 Presidential election [W]hile it's true that we snatched democracy from the jaws of autocracy, there is still a gun pointed at democracy's head. Mary Trump, The Reckoning  © 2021 Kwiple.com
2022 midterm elections Ben Franklin said our country was a republic, if you can keep it. Well, we can't.  And unless a miracle happens on Tuesday, we didn't. Democracy is  on the ballot, and, unfortunately, it's going to lose. And once it's gone, it's gone. It's not somethng you can change your mind about and reverse. That's gender. Bill Maher, Real Time with Bill Maher, November 4, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
2024 Presidential election A Trump victory is likely to mean at least the temporary suspension of American democracy as we have known it. Robert Kagan, Washington Post, September 23, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Aging It’s also true, of course, that younger politicians can suffer debilitating illnesses. … True, too, that older people with access to good health care can now lead productive public lives well past the ages at which their political forebears would have died or become incapable. But in other democracies where healthy  life spans are just as long as those in the US, the governing class is nonetheless much younger. Fintan O'Toole, New York Review of Books, January 18, 2024 © 2024 Kwiple.com
Anti-intellectualism The triumph of popular democracy brought an anti-intellectual bias to American politics that never entirely disappeared. Self-government didn't require any special learning, just the native wisdom of the people. “Even in its earliest days,” Richard Hofstadter wrote, “the egalitarian impulse in America was linked with a distrust for what in its germinal form may be called political specialization and in its later forms expertise.” Hostility to aristocracy widened into a general suspicion of educated sophisticates. The more learned citizens were actually less fit to lead; the best politicians came from the ordinary people and stayed true to them. George Packer, The Atlantic, July/August 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Artificial intelligence Creating counterfeit digital people risks destroying our civilisation. Democracy depends on the informed  (not misinformed) consent of the governed. By allowing the most economically and politically powerful people, corporations, and governments to control our attention, these systems will control us. Counterfeit people, by distracting and confusing us and by exploiting our most irresistible fears and anxieties, will lead us into temptation and, from there, into acquiescing to our own subjugation. Daniel Dennett, The Atlantic, May 16, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Authoritarianism Building on [Juan] Linz's work [in The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes ], we have developed a set of four behavioral warning signs that can help us know an authoritarian when we see one. We should worry when a politician 1) rejects, in words or action, the democratic rules of the game, 2) denies the legitimacy of opponents, 3) tolerates or encourages violence, and 4) indicates a willingness to curtail the civil liberties of opponents, including the media. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Authoritarianism The fascist movements of [the 1930s] prided themselves on being overtly antidemocratic, and those that came to power in Italy and Germany boasted that their regimes were totalitarian. The most original revelation of the current wave of authoritarians is that the construction of overtly antidemocratic dictatorships aspiring to totalitarianism is unnecessary for holding power. Perhaps the most apt designation of this new authoritarianism is the insidious term “illiberal democracy.” Christopher R. Browning, “The Suffocation of Democracy” © 2018 Kwiple.com
Authoritarianism Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, Putin in Russia, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, and Viktor Orbán in Hungary have all discovered that opposition parties can be left in existence and elections can be held in order to provide a fig leaf of democratic legitimacy, while in reality elections pose  scant challenge to their power. Truly dangerous opposition leaders are neutralzied or eliminated one way or another. Christopher R. Browning, “The Suffocation of Democracy” © 2018 Kwiple.com
Authoritarianism The story of the last two decades is not just one of democratic weaknesses; it is also one of authoritarian strength. Yascha Mounk, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Authoritarianism This is the banality of authoritarianism. Many of the politicians who preside over a democracy's collapse are just ambitious careerists trying to stay in office or perhaps win a higher one. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, Tyranny of the Minority  © 2023 Kwiple.com
Authoritarianism With the exception of Richard Nixon, no major presidential candidate met even one of these four criteria over the last century. … Donald Trump met them all. No other major presidential candidate in modern U.S. history, including Nixon, has demonstrated such a weak public commitment to constitutional rights and democratic norms. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Bad news If that's what it took, I'm glad they did it.  citation Trump supporter quoted in New York Times, January 7, 2017, commenting on Russian efforts to help Donald Trump defeat Hillary Clinton © 2017 Kwiple.com
The Big Lie The “Big Lie,” a term that originates with Hitler, became central to American political discourse after I applied it to Trump's claim to have won an election he had lost. The concept of the “Big Lie,” which I reintroduced into discussion in 2019 and 2020, helped millions of people see how mendacity of a certian scale affects politics over time, making democracy ever more difficult. Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands © 2022 Kwiple.com
Bipartisanship [I]t cannot seriously be denied that the concept of bipartisanship — insofar as it is deployed as a case against unilateral Democratic action — has become a threat to the democratic process. If Democrats fail to check Republican voter suppression and the risk that the right subverts the next election, it will be because the pivotal voters in the caucus and the president upheld a doctrine that presupposes an equivalence between the two parties and holds that Republican abuses cannot be curbed without permission from Republicans. Osita Nwanevu, The New Republic, October 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Change [P]ublic opinion and policy do mostly tend to move together. Policy is more likely to change when majorities of citizens favor a change than when majorities oppose it. Average citizens fairly often get what they want. … This could be called “democracy by coincidence.” It occurs even though ordinary citizens have little or no influence on their own, becauss those citizens fairly often agree with the policies that are also favored (and won) by their affluent fellow citizens who do  have a lot of clout. Benjamin Page and Martin Gilens, Democracy in America? © 2019 Kwiple.com
Civil wars One study revealed that all of the democracies that experienced civil war between 1960 abd 1995 had majoritarian or presidential systems. None of them were based on proportional representation. Barbara F. Walter, How Civil Wars Start  © 2022 Kwiple.com
Civil wars This isn't the first time in modern history that populists with anti-democratic leanings have come to power. It is also not the first time that democracies have experienced backsliding. What's different is the mechanism: before, autocracy came about when military generals launched coups. But now it's being ushered in by the voters themselves. This is happening in large part because social media allows candidates to sow or capitalize on, doubts that citizens might have about democracy as a form of government. … To make good decisions about candidates in democracies, voters must have good information, and social media has flooded voters with bad information. Barbara F. Walter, How Civil Wars Start  © 2022 Kwiple.com
Conservatives Maybe you do not care about the future of the Republican Party. You should. Conservatives will always be with us. If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy. David Frum, Trumpocracy © 2018 Kwiple.com
Conservatives No one had come along to suggest that power should be unlimited. But now someone has, and we have learned something very interesting about these “conservatives,” both the rank and file and holders of high of high office: their overwhelming commitment is not to democratic allocation of power, but to their ideological goals — the annihilation of liberalism, the restoration of a white ethno-nationalist hegemony. They know better than to speak of such things openly, but every once and a while they have allowed a piece of the cat's anatomy to slip out of the bag, a tail here, a hind leg there. Michael Tomasky, New York Review of Books, August 16, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
The Constitution of the United States For my part, I believe that the legitimacy of the constitution ought to derive solely from it utility as an instrument of democrtic government —nothing more, nothing less. Robert A. Dahl, How Democratic Is the American Constitution?  © 2018 Kwiple.com
The Constitution of the United States To assume that this country has remained democratic because of its Constitution seems to me an obvious reversal of the relation; it is much more plausible to suppose that the Constitution has remained because our society is essentially democratic. Robert A. Dahl, A Preface to Democratic Theory  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Constitutions [I]t might not be a bad idea if a democratic country, once every twenty years or so, assembled a group of constitutional scholars, political leaders and informed citizens to evaluate its constitution in the light not only of its experience but also of the rapidly expanding body of knowledge gained from the experiences of other democratic countries. Robert A. Dahl, On Democracy  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Corporate welfare Congress grills flak clatchers from Facebook, Google and Twitter about subverting American democracy by enabling trolling by Russians in the 2016 presidential election and, shortly afterwards, plans to cut corporate tax rates nearly in half © 2017 Kwiple.com
< Death threats One email, sent on Jan. 2 to officials in nearly a dozen counties, threatened to bomb polling sites: “No one at these places will be spared unless and until Trump is guaranteed to be POTUS again.” Reuters, June 11, 2021, in an article about Georgia entitled: “Trump-inspired death threats are terrorizing election workers” © 2021 Kwiple.com
< Death threats “You actually deserve to hang by your goddamn, soy boy, skinny-ass neck,” said a woman in one voicemail, to Richard Barron, director of elections for Fulton County, GA. Reuters, June 11, 2021, in an article about Georgia entitled: “Trump-inspired death threats are terrorizing election workers” © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy A 2017 international study by the Pew Research Center on people’s commitment to democracy revealed troubling news. Fifty-one percent of U.S. respondents described themselves as “dissatisfied” with how American democracy is working, and 46 percent said they were open to forms of government other than representative democracy, including rule by a strong leader or by groups of experts. This tendency was more pronounced among people aged eighteen to twenty-nine than among those over age fifty. “Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century,” Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship © 2022 Kwiple.com
Democracy According to V-Dem, a Swedish research institute, almost three quarters of the world's population now live in autocracies against less than half a decade ago. That vertiginous shift justifies the term “democratic recession”. Edward Luce, Financial Times, March 29, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Democracy The alternative to a loyal opposition is not consensus but behind-the-scenes intrigue or chaotic issue-by-issue fights. Jan-Werner Müller, Democracy Rules © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy An illiberal democracy is centered on the supposed needs of the community rather than the inalienable rights of the individual. It is democratic because it respects the will of the majority; illiberal because it disrespects the concerns of minorities. Madeleine Albright, Fascism: A Warming   © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy Any American watching Israel's turmoil  must recognise the parallels between the two countries — not just today, but stretching back to the founding of both states. Israel and the US are two improbable creations that went on similar journeys. Both may soon end with the dismantling of democracy. …  Both states hit identity crises when the ethnic  majority realised it risked becoming a minority. … It’s often said nowadays that Israel can be a Jewish state or a democracy, but it can't be both. Similarly, the US can be a white-ruled ethnostate or a democracy, but not both. Simon Kuper, Financal Times, August 3, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Democracy As a rule of thumb, a democracy is in good health  to the extent that its politics do not matter. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, January 19, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy  Before you can begin to have democracy  you need a country in which everyone has some stake and some taste of its promise. Walter Lippmann, Drift and Mastery  © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy The belief that a very high level of participation is always good for democracy is not valid. As the events of the 1930s in Germany demonstrated … an increase in the level of participation may reflect the decline  of social cohesion and the breakdown of the democratic process; whereas a stable democracy may rest on the general belief that the outcome of an election will not make too great a difference in society. Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy The big question of our time, in my opinion, is whether the media in its daily tussle with an impatient, powerful president has the spunk, the stuff, and the public support to stand up and say, Mr. President, this far and no further. If the media, for whatever reason, fails to meet this challenge, then democracy, as we have known it, will slowly die. Marvin Kalb © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy The biggest threat to democracy is the use of conspiracy theories by governments, who then try to deligitimise opposition or any independent thought by attributing them to conspiracies. Richard J.Evans © 2017 Kwiple.com
Democracy But note that there is no procedure-less democracy. … Procedures have to enable losers to have their say, and winners to have their way, and allow not just for losers and winners to switch places but for new winners and losers to enter the game over time. Jan-Werner Müller, Democracy Rules © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy But saving democracy? The way to do that is to fix the economic and social policies that have been stripping liberal societies of legitimacy in the eyes of their citizens. Philip Stephens, Financial Times, October 8, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Democracy But the threat we face is a new one; it requires new thinking. Through most of American history, both parties, while excluding large numbers of Americans from the franchise, basically accepted the choice of the electorate — and that is no longer true.  The supreme danger now is not that voters in urban counties will have a harder time  finding a drop box, or that some states will  shorten the mail-ballot application window. The danger is that the express will of the American people could be overthrown. George Packer, The Atlantic, January/February 2022 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy Cause everything that hitler And mussolini do, Negroes get the same Treatment from you. You jim crowed me Before hitler rose to power — And you're STILL jim crowing me Right now, this very hour. You say we're fighting For democracy. Then why don't democracy Include me? from “Beaumont to Detroit: 1943” by Langston Hughes, addressing America during World War II © 2017 Kwiple.com
Democracy The combination of a would-be authoritarian and a major crisis can, therefore, be deadly to democracy. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die  [because of “rally ’round the flag” effects] © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy The crisis of democratic government is therefore really a crisis of democratic society. Ganesh Sitaraman, The Great Democracy © 2020 Kwiple.com
Democracy The cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy. Jane Addams © 2023 Kwiple.com
Democracy Democracies cannot survive without some  essential counter-majoritarian institutions. But they also cannot survive — at least as democracies — with excess- ively counter-majoritarian institutions. And that is where the United States finds itself today. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, Tyranny of the Minority  © 2023 Kwiple.com
Democracy  Democracies do not die dramatically. They slowly fade away. David Cay Johnston, It's Even Worse Than You Think  © 2019 Kwiple.com
Democracy Democracies work best – and survive longer – where constitutions are reinforced by unwritten democratic norms. Two basic norms have preserved America's checks and balances in ways we have come to take for granted: mutual toleration, or the understanding that competing parties accept one another as legitimate rivals, and forbearance, or the idea that politicians should exercise restraint in deploying their institutional prerogatives. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy Democracy can be defined as a civilised civil war. It recognises the existence of differences of opinion, but resolves these peacefully,  through elections, which are the fundamental institution of representative democracy. Elections determine legitimacy. But to do so they must be recognised as fair. A lie about the outcome of an election, then, is not just any lie. It is not even just any political lie. It directly threatens democracy. It is an attempt to overthrow elections as the arbiter of power. Martin Wolf, Financial Times, May 2, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Democracy Democracy didn't prevail. It lucked out. Gideon Rose, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2021, on the failure of the January 6, 2021, mob assault on the Capitol to prevent confirmaiton of Biden's electoral victory © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy Democracy Dies In Darkness The Washington Post's tagline © 2017 Kwiple.com
Democracy Democracy in the Middle Ages, as in modern times, got its start under the guidance of a select few who foisted their program on the confused asprations of the people. Henri Pirenne, Medieval Cities © 2023 Kwiple.com
Democracy Democracy is a work in progress. So is democracy's undoing. David Frum, Trumpocracy  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy Democracy is not only a form of state, it is not just something embodied in a constitution; democracy is a view of life, it requires a belief in human beings, in humanity. … I have already said that demcracy is a discussion. But the real discussion is possible only if people trust each other and if they try fairly to find the truth. Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy Democracy is premised on elections and changes of government. If you have one party that doesn't know how to lose, then democracy can't survive.  Daniel Ziblatt, Rolling Stone, June 16, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy Democracy is under siege because its elites have allowed unfettered markets to run roughshod over the postwar social contract, leaving voters trapped in a lethal equilibrium of low growth and rising inequality. Philip Stephens, Financial Times, April 8, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking. Clement Attlee, speech at Oxfrd University, June 14, 1957 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy Democracy never lasts long.  It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy that did not commit suicide. John Adams, letter to John Taylor, April 15, 1814 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy Democracy's assassins always have accomplices  — political insiders who appear to abide by democracy's rules but quietly assault them. These are what [Juan] Linz called “semi-loyal” democrats. … Indeed, throughout history, cooperation between authoritarians and seemingly respectful semi-loyal democrats has been a recipe for democratic breakdown. …  History teaches us that when mainstream poli-  ticians take the more expedient path of semi- loyality … extremists are often strengthened and a seemingly solid democracy can collapse upon itself. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, Tyranny of the Minority  © 2023 Kwiple.com
Democracy Democratic citizenship requires  a degree of empathy, insight, and kindness that demands a great deal of all of us. There are easier ways to live. Jason Stanley, How Fascism Works © 2023 Kwiple.com
Democracy [T]he democratic process is unlikely to be preserved unless the people of a country preponderantly believe that it is desirable, and unless this belief comes to be embedded in the habits, practices and culture of that people. Robert A. Dahl, A Preface to Economic Democracy © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy Democratic revolutions are contagious. If you can stamp them out in one country, you might prevent them from starting in others. Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic, December 2021 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Democracy The democratic system in this country is in crisis as never before in my lifetime. It's the ultimate destruction of the legislative process.  David Obey [1999] © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy The electoral road to breakdown is dangerously deceptive. With a classic coup d'état … the death of a democracy is immediate and evident to all. The presidential palace burns. The president is killed, imprisoned, or shipped off into exile. The constitution is suspended or scrapped. On the electoral road, none of these things happen. There are no tanks in the streets. Constitutions and other nominally democratic institutions remain in place. People still vote. Elected auto- crats maintain a veneer of democracy while eviscerating its substance. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy For the first time this century, among countries with more than one million people, there are now fewer democracies than there are non-democratic regimes. Timothy Garten Ash, Prospect magazine, January/February 2021 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Democracy Given the right conditions, any society can turn against democracy. Indeed, if history is anything to go by, all societies eventually will. Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic, October 2018 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Democracy  Gone are the days of military coups.  Edward Luce, Financial Times, January 13-14, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy The great advantage of the Americans is to have arrived at democracy without having to suffer democratic revolutions, and to be born equal instead of becoming so. Ganesh Sitaraman, The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy A great democracy has got to be progressive or it will soon cease to be either great or a democracy. Theodore Roosevelt © 2020 Kwiple.com
Democracy The greatest threat to our democracy  comes not from demagogues like Mr. Trump or even from extremist followers like those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 but rather from the ordinary politicians, many of them inside the Capitol that day who protect and enable him. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, New York Times, September 8, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Democracy Herin lies the main lesson of the Weimar Republic. If liberal democracy fails to deliver economic prosperity for a sufficiently large portion of the population over long periods, it ends — along with the financial and economic institutions it created. Wolfgang Münchau, Financial Times, May 21, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy [T]he history of modern democracy, in the United States and many other parts of the world, including much of Europe and Latin America, has been riven with a constant tension between the rule of expert truth, on the one hand, and the rule of majority instincts on the other. But too much of either in isolation — elite knowledge or popular consensus, without the corrective of the other — constitutes a danger to the whole edifice. Sophia Rosenfeld, Democracy and Truth © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy If American democracy, long a beacon, cannot self-correct, then all democracies are at risk. Roger Cohen, New York Times, October 29, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Democracy If and when US democracy falls, giggling complacency, not moustache-twirling villainy, will be the presiding atmosphere. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, December 7, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy If  democracy is justified  in governing the state, then it must also  be justified in governing economic enterprises; and to say that it is not  justified in governing economic enterprises is to imply that it is not justified in governing the state.  Robert A. Dahl, A Preface to Economic Democracy © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy If we do not as Americans confront the crisis of ethics and integrity in our society and among our leaders in both the public and private sector – and regrettably at times  even the nonprofit sector – then American democracy as we know it is entering its twilight years. Rex Tillerson, VMI commencement address, May 16, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy In the 1990s, the wealthy backed democracy more strongly than any other income group in America and Europe. That has turned upside down. The poor are now democracy's strongest fans, the rich its biggest skeptics.  Edward Luce, The Retreat of Western Liberalism  © 2017 Kwiple.com
Democracy In our democracy, power is derived from the people, but structures empower some people over others. The Senate empowers a minority of predomi- nantly white conservative voters to elect enough senators to block the will of the majority. Over the past few decades, changes in the Senate's rules have meant that senators representing as little as 11 percent of the population can deliver the obstructionist agenda these white conservative voters desire, blocking progress across most issues. This dynamic renders these voters abnormally powerful. This group is not just a minority, it is a superminority. Adam Jentleson, Kill Switch © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy in the contrast between the two aforementioed models of representation: delegate-style representation and trustee represenation. … In delegate-style representation, individuals are regarded as the best stewards of their interests and elected officials fulfill their responsibilities when they translate constituent interests and demands, as directly as possible, into law and policy … the trustee model does not require treating political rights as being first and fore- most the rights of discrete individuals pursuing individual self-interests. In trusteeship, repre- sentatives are responsible for understanding and pursuing the good of their constituents. While delegate representatives might see this through the lens of individual constituents, many believe that trusteeship can more easily take a longer and broader view … Elizabeth F. Cohen and Cyril Ghosh, Citizenship © 2020 Kwiple.com
Democracy … in the end all possible improvements of the infractructure of democracy depend on one thing: that intermediary institutions be not only accessible and autonomous but also assessable, as the British philosopher Onora O'Neill has put it. If they are to contribute to citizens' judgments, it matters that citizens can also judge them. Jan-Werner Müller, Democracy Rules [Intermediary institutions include political parties and the press] © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy In the end,  the public's exasperation with democracy is an implied self-criticism. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, September 9, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Democracy It couldn’t be more simple. A vote for Republicans is a vote to destroy Democracy. Rob Reiner, 8:03 AM – Apr 20, 2022, on the Republicans during the Trump era © 2022 Kwiple.com
Democracy It is impossible to excel at disinformation and democracy at the same time. Thomas Rid, Active Measures © 2022 Kwiple.com
Democracy It is of course easy to show that on any definition that is not simply vacuous, a majority might  harm the interests of a minority, might  act unjustly, might might indeed act tyranically. But if every other alternative kind of regime would also permit injustice and tyranny, then it can hardly be counted as a unique defect of democracy or the majority principle that they do not totally foreclose these possible wrongs. Surely a question to ask is whether democracy is more prone to this kind of wrongdoing than any of the alternatives to it. Robert A. Dahl, A Preface to Economic Democracy © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy It’s often said nowadays that Israel can be a Jewish state or a democracy, but it can't be both. Similarly, the US can be a white-ruled ethnostate or a democracy, but not both. In both countries, about half the dominant ethnic group is tempted by an ethnostate. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, August 3, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Democracy Key to the smooth running of democracy is the indifference of much of the population, much of the time. Voters are crucial as an eye on things, as a righter of the ship of state when it lists. That requires a measure of knowledge. Round-the-clock absorption is something else. It causes politics to take place in too loud a setting, laws to be made in too hot a smithy. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, November 25, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Democracy … let me once again view democracy as, ideally at least, a political system designed for citizens of a state who are willing to treat one another, for political purposes, as political  equals. Citizens might view one another as unequal in other respects. … But … they … assume that all citizens have equal rights to participate, directly or in- directly through their elected represen- tatives, in making the policies, rules, laws or other decisions that citizens are expected (or required) to obey … Robert A. Dahl, How Democratic Is the American Constitution?  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy The mission falls to each of us, each and every day. Democracy itself is in peril, here at home and around the world. What we do now, how we honor the memory of the fallen, will determine whether democracy will long endure. Joe Biden, Memorial Day 2021 speech at Arlington National Cemetery © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy Mutual toleration means that political opponents must accept the  legitimacy and legality of their opponents.  If elected leaders can send their opponents to prison and otherwise discredit them, then leaders are afraid to relinguish power lest they be imprisoned themselves. The criminalization of politics is a kind of toxin that breaks down the cooperation required to sustain a democracy. Jonathan Chaitt, New York, September 14-27, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Democracy Polyarchy  is … a convenient way of referring to a modern representative democracy with universal suffrage. … [It] … is different from representative democracy with restricted suffrage, as in the nineteenth century. It is also different from older democracies and republics that … lacked many of the crucial characteristics of polyarchical democracy, such as political parties, rights to form political organization to influence or oppose the existing government, organized interest groups, and so on. … Attached to the institutions of polyarchical democracy that help citizens to exercise influence over the conduct and decisions of the government is a nondemocratic process, bargaining among political  and bureaucratic elites.  Robert A. Dahl, On Democracy © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy Public apathy and political ignorance are a fundamental fact today, beyond any possible dispute; decisions are made by political leaders, not by popular vote, which at best has only an occasional veto power after the fact. The issue is whether this state of affairs is, under modern conditions, a necessary and desirabe one, or whether new forms of popular participation, in the Athenian spirit though not in the Athenian substance, if I may phrase it that way, need to be invented. M. I. Finley, Democracy Ancient and Modern  [1973] © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy The remarkable thing about American democracy is this: Just enough of us, on just enough occasions, have chosen not to dismantle democracy but to preserve democracy. Joe Biden, November 2, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Democracy  Robinhood easing access to stock trading does not democratise the stock market any more than Purdue Pharma  democratised opioid addiction. Democracy is about voice, not trading. Jerry Davis, University of Michagan professor of sociology and management, quoted by Rana Foroohar, Financial Times, February 7, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy The soft power of democracy is not what it was. It has produced Mr Trump as leader of the world's most important country. It is not an advertisement. Martin Wolf, Financial Times, May 31, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Democracy The stability of any given democracy depends not only on economic develop- ment but also upon the effectiveness and the legitimacy of its political system. Effectiveness means actual performance, the extent to which the system satisfies the basic functions of government as most of the population and such powerful groups within it as big business or the armed foreces see them. Legitimacy involves the capacity of the system to engender and maintain the belief that the existing political institutions are the most appropriate ones for the society. Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy A stable democracy requires a situation in which all the major political parties include supporters from many segments of the population. A system in which the support of different parties corresponds too closely to basic social divisions cannot continue on a democratic basis, for it reflects a state of conflcit so intense and clear cut as to rule out compromise. Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy [That] the seven might, in particular instances be right, and the seventeen wrong, is more than possible. But to establish a positive and permanent rule giving such a power to such a minority, over such a majority, would overturn the first principle of free government. James Madison, letter to Edward Everett, August 28, 1830 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy There are two circumstances in particular in which a minority may feel that majority rule violates  political equality. One …[is]… the case where those who vote with the majority are affected much less by the decision, or have fewer interests at stake, than those who form the minority. Although heads have been counted equally, it appears as though preferences or interests have not. The second circumstance is where one group finds itself in a minority repeatedly when votes are taken. … In other words, we have the problem of the intense  minority and the problem of the persistent  minority. David Miller, Political Philisophy © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy There can be no real political democracy unless there is something approaching an economic democracy. Theodore Roosevelt © 2020 Kwiple.com
Democracy  There is no easy way to stop a major party that’s intent on destroying democracy. The demonic energy with which Trump  repeats his lies, and Bannon harangues his  audience, and Republican politicians around the country try to seize every lever of election machinery — this relentless drive for power by American authoritarians is the major threat that America confronts. The Constitution doesn't have an answer. No help will come from Republican leaders; if Romney and Susan Collins are all that stand between the republic and its foes, we’re doomed. George Packer, The Atlantic, January/February 2022 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy This is what the death of American democracy looks like. It's time to acknowledge that we no longer have a democracy, but a plutocracy: Government of the rich, by the rich, for the rich, brought to you by Citizens United and the Supreme Court. Stephen Wolf, “Just 158 families account for nearly half of all presidential campaign donations,” Daily Kos, October 12, 2015 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy This will always remain one of the best jokes of democracy, that it gave its deadly enemies the means by which it was destroyed. Joseph Goebbels © 2022 Kwiple.com
Democracy  Those questioning the future of American democracy are behind the curve.  Half of it has already packed up. Parties are what animate a democracy. There is no longer a Republican one distinct from the cult of personality it has become. It is what Mr Trump says it is at any given moment.  One day North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un may be America’s deadliest enemy. Standing ovation. The next day, Mr Kim is Mr Trump's soul brother. The audience stays on its feet. Edward Luce, Financial Times, August 26, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Democracy To a small “d” democrat, process matters more than ideology. The fairness of an election is more important than who wins it. There is not, on most questions of policy, a single democatic answer. Concerns arise only when leaders try to augment their power through means that could cause permanent damage to democratic institutions. Madeleine Albright © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy Trump's fate will shape the future of liberal democracy. That is what makes it so alarming.  Edward Luce, Financial Times, January 13-14, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy The two countries that saved liberal democracy in the 20th century have lost their moral compass. Many citizens no longer seem to care whether their leaders are scoundrels. Not long ago, people viewed these nations as models of successful democracy. Now the US is viewed as a bully and the UK as a fool. Messrs Trump and [Boris] Johnson [the expected next prime minister] are seen as contemptible, ludicrous or both. Martin Wolf, Financial Times, June 27, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Democracy Unfortunately, it's very difficult for democracies to take action to prevent a future crisis. The risks of acting now are always clear and often exaggerated, whereas distant threats are just that: distant and so hard to calculate.  It always seems better to hope for the best rather than try to foretell the worst. Robert Kagan, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Democracy The United States, once a democratic pioneer and a model for other countries, has become a democratic laggard. The endurance of our pre-democratic institutions as other democracies have dismantled theirs makes us a uniquely counter-majoritarian democracy at the dawn of the twenty-first century. … … it is the world's only democracy with both a strong, malapportioned Senate and  a legis-  lative minority veto (the filibuster). In no other democracy do legislative minorities routinely  and permanently thwart legislative majorities. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, Tyranny of the Minority  © 2023 Kwiple.com
Democracy We are not a democracy. The question has always been whether enough white people even want one. Elie Mystal, The Nation, August 9/16, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy We define democracy  as policy responsiveness to ordinary citizens  – that is, popular control of government. Or simply “majority rule.” Benjamin Page and Martin Gilens, Democracy in America? © 2019 Kwiple.com
Democracy We have learned again that democracy is precious. Democracy is fragile. And at this hour, my friends, democracy has prevailed. Joe Biden, inaugural speech, January 20, 2021, two weeks after the assault on the Capitol by right-wing domestic terrorists incited by Donald Trump and his ilk to prevent the peaceful transfer of power to Joe Biden, which was quelled © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy We may have democracy, or we may have surveillance society, but we cannot have both. A democratic surveillance society is an existential and political impossibility. Make no mistake: This is the fight for the soul of our information civilization. Shoshana Zuboff, New York Times, January 29, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both. Louis D. Brandeis © 2017 Kwiple.com
Democracy When a demos ceases to believe that the rights necessary to democracy are desirable, their democracy will soon become an oligarchy or a tyranny. There is however, a more insidious route from democracy to oligarchy. Even if most members of the demos continue to believe  in the desirability of these fundamental rights, they may fail to undertake the political actions that would be necessary to protect and preserve those those rights from infringement imposed by political leaders who possess greater resources for gaining their own political ends. Robert A. Dahl, On Political Equality © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy  When corporations get so big that they can start to squeeze the government, then democracy no longer works. Elizabeth Warren © 2019 Kwiple.com
Democratic institutions They must make even losing under democracy more attractive than a future under non-democratic outcomes. Adam Przeworski © 2020 Kwiple.com
Democracy When in a democracy, one group of citizens can deliberately, purposefully make it more difficult for another group of citizens to vote, they have put a dagger into that democracy. We cannot let that happen. Sheldon Whitehouse, January 19, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Democracy With the demise of the democratic values of equality and popular sovereignty, the agonistic spaces where different projects of society could confront each other have disappeared and citizens have been deprived of exercising their democratic rights. Chantal Mouffe, For a Left Populism © 2017 Kwiple.com
Democracy Yet [Patrick] Byrne had the germ of the right idea. The best way to steal a presidential election would indeed be through a staged display of democratic process backed by elaborate precooked ‘evidence’ of foreign conspiracy and simplified by Fox News, social media, and other media. This is the upside-down shape of a successful American coup. Democracy is destroyed by the enactment of its protection. Conspirators succeed by foiling a“conspiracy.” Fintan O'Toole, New York Review of Books, January 19, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Democracy vs. autocracy In democracies  certainty about procedures is combined with uncertainty about substantive outcomes; in autocracies certainty about substantive results goes with uncertainty about the procedures. Jan-Werner Müller, Democracy Rules © 2021 Kwiple.com
Election meddling Yes I did. Yes I did. Because he talked about bringing the U.S.-Russia relationship back to normal. Vladimir Putin, responding to a reporter who asked him at the Helsinki summit press conference, “Did you want President Trump to win the election? And did you direct  any of your officials to help him do that?” © 2018 Kwiple.com
Elites Those searching for one-line lessons from history should take note: apparently, it is not the people who decide to be done with democracy; it is elites. Jan-Werner Müller, Democracy Rules © 2021 Kwiple.com
Extremism Although mass responses to extremist appeals matter, what matters more is whether political elites, and expecially parties, serve as filters. Put simply, political parties are democracy's gatekeepers. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Fascism Fascism, in short, was not a mere reactionary position. Its primary aim was to destroy democracy from within in order to create a modern dictatorship from above. Federico Finchelstein, A Brief History of Fascist Lies  © 2022 Kwiple.com
Fascism The first truth [about the liberty of a democratic people] is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself.  That, in its essence, is fascism — ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, April 29, 1938, Message to Congress on Curbing Monopolies © 2022 Kwiple.com
Foreign relations Hugh Barrera, an ARENA contender for the presidency, told Laurie Becklund of The Los Angeles Times  when she asked  in April of 1982 if ARENA did not fear losing American aid by trying to shut the Christian Democrats out of the government, “Congress would not risk losing a whole country over one party. That would be turning against a U.S. ally and encouraging Soviet intervention here. It would not be intelligent.” In other words, “anti-communism” was seen, correctly, as the bait the United States would always take. Joan Didion, Salvador [ARENA is a right-wing party in El Salvador] © 2017 Kwiple.com
Gerrymandering But just because soemthing is unjust and incompatible with democratic principles and fiendishly effective, Justice Roberts writes [in Rucha v. Common Cause], doesn't mean it's within the purview of the court to find a constitutional violation. Gerrymandering stinks, but not so badly that the Constitution can smell it. Jordan Ellenberg, Shape © 2022 Kwiple.com
Gerrymandering Gerrymandering has a long and unpopular history in the United States. It is the main reason that the country ranked 55th of 158 nations — last among Western democracies — in a 2017 index of voting fairness run by the Electoral Integrity Project, an academic collaboration between the University of Sydney, Australia, and Harvard University's John F. Kennedy  School of Government, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Nature, Vol. 546, 8 June 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Government [W]e like to believe that the fate of a government lies in the hands of its citizens. If the people hold democratic values, democracy will be safe. If the citizens are open to authoritarian appeals, then, sooner or later, democracy will be in trouble. This view is wrong. It assumes too much of democracy—that “the people” can shape at will the kind of government they possess. It is hard to find any evi- dence of majority support for authori- tarianism in 1920s Germany and Italy. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die  © 2018 Kwiple.com
History What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of man's ideological evolution and the universalism of Western liberal democracy. Francis Fukuyama, The Independent, September 20, 1989 © 2022 Kwiple.com
House of Representatives The House Rules Committee is perhaps the free world's outstanding bureaucratic abomination – a tiny, airless closet deep in the labyrinth of the Capital where some of the very meanest people on earth spend their days skinning democracy like a fish. The official function of the committee is to decide which bills and amendments will be voted on by Congress and also to schedule the parameters of debate. If Rules votes against your amendment, your amendment dies. If you control the Rules Committee, you control Congress. Matt Taibbi, “Four Amendments and a Funeral” © 2017 Kwiple.com
Hypocrisy If we dislike hypocrisy more than we dislike lying, then it is not just a problem for climate politics. It is a problem for democracy. It gives the liars their chance. David Runciman © 2017 Kwiple.com
Ignorance Ignorance is an evil weed, which dictators may cultivate among their dupes, but which no democracy can afford among its citizens. William Henry Beveridge © 2023 Kwiple.com
Ignorance There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism  has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge”. Isaac Asimov © 2023 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say  I accuse Donald Trump and Mike Pence of conspiracy to transfer sovereignty from America's citizens to its largest  corporations and richest families and to make governments and the courts instruments for promoting their interests against all others' — actions democracies should deem treason punishable by death ——— Prominent Congressional Co-conspirators ——— Lamar Alexander • John Barrasso • Roy Blunt • John Boozman • Richard Burr • Shelley Capito • Bill Cassidy • Thad Cochran • Susan Collins • Bob Corker • John Cornyn • Tom Cotton • Mike Crapo • Ted Cruz • Steve Daines • Mike Enzi • Joni Ernst • Deb Fischer • Jeff Flake • Freedom Caucus • Cory Gardner • Lindsey Graham • Chuck Grassley • Orrin Hatch • Dean Heller • John Hoeven • James Inhofe • Johnny Isakson • Ron Johnson • John Kennedy • James Lankford • Mike Lee • Ron Johnson • John Kennedy • James Lankford • Mitch McConnell • Jerry Moran • Lisa Murkowski • Rand Paul • David Perdue • Rob Portman • Jim Risch • Pat Roberts • Mike Rounds • Marco Rubio • Ben Sasse • Tim Scott • Richard Shelby • Luther Strange • Dan Sulliven • John Thune • Thom Tillis • Patrick Toomey • Roger Wicker • Todd Young ——— Prominent Unelected Co-conspirators ——— Sheldon Adelson • Samuel Alito • American Legislative Exchange Council • Americans for Prosperity • Americans for Tax Reform • Betsy DeVos • Federalist Society • Fox News • Neil Gorsuch • Charles & David Koch • Robert & Rebekah Mercer • Scott Pruitt • John Roberts, Jr. • Sinclair Broadcast Group • Peter Singer • Peter Thiel • Clarence Thomas • U.S. Chamber of Commerce  © 2017 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say The lying has to stop. The liars have to be put down. © 2018 Kwiple.com
Liberty [I]n the end, a democratic society cannot depend on its constitutional systems for the preservation of its liberties. It can depend only on the beliefs and cultures shared by its political, legal, and cultural elites and by the citizens to whom these elites are responsive.  Robert A. Dahl, How Democratic Is the American Constitution?  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Lies In all democracies, politicians occasionally lie to cover up scandals or exaggerate their legislative accomplishments. In the United States, the rise of the right-wing news media in recent decades has tempted politicians to play to their own supporters without worrying whether their rhetoric is inflammatory or fair. But the construction of an alternate reality that obviates the very possibility of conducting politics on the basis of truth is a novelty in this country. And it is increasingly becoming obcious that it will serve a clear purpose: to prepare the ground for egregious violations of basic democratic norms. Yascha Mounk, New York Times, December 21, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Lies The Republican Party is no longer just obfuscating the truth or defending the president when he is accused of wrongdoing. Rather, Mr. Trump, Fox News and Republicans in Congress seem to be actively using falsehoods to prepare an assault on the institutions that allow American democracy to function. Yascha Mounk, New York Times, December 21, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Markets A market economy inevitably and frequently inflicts serious harm on some citizens. By producing great inequalities in resources among citizens, market capitalism also fosters political inequality among the citizens of a democratic country. Robert A. Dahl, On Political Equality © 2018 Kwiple.com
Middle class No bourgeoisie, no democracy. Barrington Moore, Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy © 2015 Kwiple.com
Money in politics Money buys politicians. This is plutocracy, not democracy. Martin Wolf, Financial Times, December 4, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Monopoly Today, in America, competition is dying. Consolidation and concentration are on the rise in sector after sector. Concentration threatens our markets, threatens our economy, and threatens our democracy. Elizabeth Warren © 2017 Kwiple.com
Nationalism Nationalism is not simply a political ideology, or set of ideas, but a social psychology. Nationalist sentiment is an essential ingredient of a democracy, which is based on the assumption of a common identity, and of a welfare state, which is based on the acceptance by citizens of their financial responsibility for people whom they may not know at all, and who may have widely different backgrounds from theirs. John Judis, The Nationalist Revival © 2020 Kwiple.com
Neoliberalism Neoliberalism has … been both antidemocratic and anti-Democratic. Robert Kuttner. New York Review of Books, July 21, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Oligarchy Democracy leads to oligarchy and necessarily contains an oligarchic nucleus. In making this assertion, it is far from the author's intention to pass a moral judgment upon any political party or system of government, to level an accusation of hypocrisy. The law that it is an essential characteristic of all human aggregates to constitute cliques and sub-classes is, like every other sociological law, beyond good and evil. Robert Michels, Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Partisanship [W]hen societies grow so deeply divided that parties become wedded to incompatible worldviews, and especially when their members are so socially segregated that they rarely interact, stable partisan rivalries eventually give way to perceptions of mutual threat. As mutual toleration disappears, politicians grow tempted to abandon forbearance and try to win at all costs. This may encourage the rise of antisystem groups that reject democracy's rules altogether. When that happens, democracy is in trouble. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Polarization What should we make of the fact that America's TV channels all carried the live jubilee festivities of an elderly monarch but will part ways on this week's hearings into an assault on US democracy? The light-hearted take is that the British crown is above politics, including in America. The darker interpretation is that the survival of US democracy itself is now a partisan issue. Edward Luce, Financial Times, June 8, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Political inequality The extent and nature of representational inequalities reflect the degree of democracy in a given society, and when inequalities in political influence become too large, democracy shades into oligarchy (rule by the few) or plutocracy (rule by the wealthy). Martin Gilens, Affluence and Influence  © 2017 Kwiple.com
Political inequality On Tuesday, according to The Times, Democratic Senate candidates garnered 45 million votes, and Republicans just 33 million (57 percent to 42 percent). Yet, the Republicans will gain perhaps three seats. That is not democracy.  Michael Tomasky, New York Times, November 7, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Politics It is not normal to be enthusiastic about a politician. Choosing between flawed options is the natural state of democracy. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, November 13, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Politics Prior to politics, beneath it, enveloping it, restricting it, conditioning it, is the underlying consensus on policy that usually exists in the society among a predominant portion of the politically active members. Without such a consensus no democratic system would long survive the endless irritations and frustrations of elections and party competition. Robert A. Dahl, On Political Equality © 2018 Kwiple.com
Politics When we talk about the process, then, we are talking, increasingly, not about “the democratic process,” or the general mech- anism affording the citizens of a state a voice in its affairs, but the reverse: a mech- anism seen as so specialized that access to it is correctly limited to its own professionals, to those who manage policy and those who report on it, to those who run the polls and those who quote them, to those who ask and those who answer the questions on Sunday shows, to the media consultants, to the col- umnists, to the issues advisers, to those who give the off-the-record breakfasts and those who attend them; to that handful of insiders who invent, year in and year out, the narrative of public life. Joan Didion, “Insider Baseball” © 2017 Kwiple.com
Populism Stable democracy is incompatible with a belief that fellow citizens are “enemies of the people”. We must recognise and address the anger that causes populism. But populism is an enemy of good government and even of democracy. Martin Wolf, Financial Times, June 28, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Populism This is the liberal nightmare: not that populists abolish democracy to remain in power, but that they perform well enough not to have to. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, January 23, 2024 © 2024 Kwiple.com
Power If majority rule is mostly a myth, then majority tyranny is mostly a myth too. For if the majority cannot rule, surely it cannot be tyrannical. Robert A. Dahl, On Political Equality © 2018 Kwiple.com
Power If the majority rarely rules on matters of specific policy, nevertheless the specific policies selected by a process of “minorities rule” probably lie most of the time within the bounds of consensus set by the important values of the politically active members of the society, of whom the voters are a key group. Robert A. Dahl, On Political Equality © 2018 Kwiple.com
Power [I]n the usual sense intended, majorities rarely, if ever, rule in any country or social organization at any time. Thus the fear of majority rule, as well as advocacy of it, is founded upon a misconception of the probabilities permitted by political reality. … To the extent that the electorate is numerous, extended, and diverse in interests, a majority faction is less likely to exist, and if it does exist, it is less likely to act as a unity. Robert A. Dahl, A Preface to Democratic Theory  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Power [T]he making of governmental decisions is not a majestic march of great majorities united upon certain matters of basic policy. It is the steady appeasement of relatively small groups. Robert A. Dahl, A Preface to Democratic Theory  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Public discourse The effectiveness of citizens’ assemblies  isn't surprising. Have you ever noticed how politicians grow a spine the moment they decide not to run for reelection? Well, a citizens' assembly is a bit like a legislature whose members make a pact barring them from seeking another term in office. The randomly selected members are not beholden to party machinations or outside interests; they are free to speak their mind and vote their conscience. What’s more, unlike elected bodies, these assemblies are chosen to mirror the population, a property that political theorists refer to as descriptive representation. For example, a typical citizens’ assembly has a roughly equal number of men and women … Ariel Procaccia, Scientific American, Nov. 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Public discourse Following Trump's victory, an ancient Greek term suddenly suddenly re-entered English usage: demophobia – literally fear of the mob. What if conveys is cold feet about democracy. … The Trump era's changing vocabulary also includes a word of more recent coinage: oikophobia, literally an aversion to home surroundings. In reality, it means fear of your own people – the opposite of xenophobia. Edward Luce, The Retreat of Western Liberalism © 2017 Kwiple.com
Public discourse To summarize, we need a modern-day kleroterion that can select a citizens' assembly that is representative in terms of multiple criteria — and can do so starting from an unrepresentative pool of volunteers. Thankfully, we've progressed from stone slabs to computers, so this problem boils down to the design of the right algorithm. … The problem of finding the fairest lottery of the potential assemblies … can be conquered by the right combination of optimization tools. Ariel Procaccia, Scientific American, November 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Reading [H]igher-level reading activities have been shown to improve and reinforce the development  of linguistic competence, empathy, social cognition and perspective-taking, focus and attention, cognitive patience (concentration and discipline), our grasp of the complexity of humans and their predicaments, evaluating different points of view, knowledge beyond the immediate purpose, and,  finally, creativity, imagination and mental imagery. … Without deep and critical engagement with the  content and language of the text we are ill equipped to counter populist simplifications, fake news, conspiracy theories and disinformation, and thus vulnerable to manipulation. This seriously endangers society’s capacity for informed democratic decision-making. Schüller-Zwierlein et.al., “Why higher-level reading is important” © 2023 Kwiple.com
Republican Party A certain form of partisanship is now a moral necessity. The Republican Party, as an institution, has become a danger to the rule of law and the integrity of our democracy. The problem is not just Donald Trump; it's the larger political apparatus that made a conscious decision to enable him. In a two-party system, nonpartisanship works only if both parties are consistent democratic actors. If one of them is not predictably so, the space for nonpartisans evaporates. We're thus driven to believe that the best hope of defending the country from Trump's enablers, and of saving the Republican Party from itself, is to … vote mindlessly and mechanically against Republicans at every opportunity, or until the party either rights itself or implodes (very preferably the former). Jonathan Rauch and Benjamin Wittes © 2018 Kwiple.com
Republican Party (1) The GOP has become the party of Trumpism. (2) Trumpism is a threat to democratic values and the rule of law. (3) The Republican Party is a threat to democratic values and the rule of law. If the syllogism holds, then the most-important tasks in U.S. politics right now are to change the Republicans' trajectory and to deprive them of power in the meantime. In our two-party system, the surest way to accomplish these things is to support the other party, in every race from president to dogcatcher. Jonathan Rauch and Benjamin Wittes, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Republican Party  If only the Grand Old Party were at stake, the nation could leave them to it. But no democracy can prosper long without two responsible parties. It is of existential import to the US (and to the world it helps to anchor) that Republican moderates prevail.  How tragic, then, that they probably won't. Their first problem is the depth and age of the internal rot. Republicans have to undo decades of flirtation with paranoid elements, not just five years' worth. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, January 12, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Republican Party So why have we come to regard the GOP as an institutional danger? In a nutshell, it has proved unable or unwilling (mostly unwilling) to block assaults by Trump and his base on the rule of law. Those assaults, were they to be normalized, would pose existential, not incidental, threats to American democracy. Jonathan Rauch and Benjamin Wittes © 2018 Kwiple.com
Republican Party motto Heads we win. Tails we coup.  citation Slogan for the Trumpist Republican Party suggested by Bill Maher, April 22, 2022, Real Time with Bill Maher © 2022 Kwiple.com
Republican Party motto Perfecting minority rule since 1971 citation 1971 is the year Lewis Powell was appointed to the Supreme Court after authoring the Powell Manifesto encouraging business executives to strangle progtressivism by creating front organizations to infiltrate and capture campuses, Congress, courts, government and the media © 2015 Kwiple.com
Republicans say Democracy can't be trusted: check it at the door to the voting booth  © 2016 Kwiple.com
Republicans say Democracy without theocracy is anarchy © 2015 Kwiple.com
Republicans say Distrust democracy © 2016 Kwiple.com
Republicans say  Legislators should choose their voters, not voters their legislators © 2018 Kwiple.com
Republicans say Prevent Democrats from keeping or winning vacated seats in the legislature by outlawing special elections to fill them — It's better for people to be disenfranchised than to be represented by the devil or for us to suffer an embarrassing loss © 2018 Kwiple.com
Republicans say c Without the Cold War, there's no reason to promote democracy at home © 2017 Kwiple.com
Resisters say Self-imposed silence is as debilitating to a democracy as censorship.  Eric Foner, “The Most Patriot Act”  © 2017 Kwiple.com
Right-wing populists say The modern structure of the German State is a higher form of democracy in which, by virtue of the people's mandate, the government is exercised authori- tatively while there is no possibility for parliamentary interference, to obliterate and render ineffective the execution of the nation's will. Joseph Goebells, 1933 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Rule of law The west was law-governed before it was democratic.  (The universal franchise is about a century old.) And if the rule of law was earlier to arrive, it is also shaping up to be the first to go. It is hard to imagine a western nation ceasing outright to be democratic any time soon, if we understand this to mean that it would no longer have fair elections whose results are enforced. Chaos, though? Entropy? Those are easier destinies to picture, at times by just looking around. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, Augusr 29, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Russia The Russian democrat ends where the Ukrainian question begins. Volodymyr Vynnychenko, first Prime Minister of Ukraine, 1917-1918 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Science For the discipline of science is the only one which gives any assurance that from the same set of facts men will come approximately to the same conclusion. And as the modern world can be civilized only by the effort of innumerable people we have a right to call science the discipline of democracy. Walter Lippmann, Drift and Mastery  © 2021 Kwiple.com
Selfie As a Russian of Asian extraction I am aware I'm not democracy material: I rarely go to vote and never to protest. And that psyche is widespread in the former Mongol empire territories: Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, China and North Korea. Mergen Mongush, letter to the editor, Financial Times, June 22, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Semi-loyal democrats It is semi-loyalists’ very respectability that makes them so dangerous. As members of the establishment, semi-loyalists can use their positions of authority to normalize antidemocratic extremists, protect them against efforts to hold them legally accountable and empower them by opening doors to the mainstream media, campaign donors and other resources. It is this subtle enabling of extremist forces that can fatally weaken democracies. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, who acknowledge Juan Linz originated the notion and term "semi-loyal democrats", in New York Times, September 8, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Semi-loyal democrats Many mainstream politicians who preside over a democracy’s collapse are not authoritarians committed to overthrowing the system; they are  careerists who are simply trying to get ahead. They are less opposed to democracy than indifferent to it. Careerism is a normal part of politics. But when democracy is at stake, choosing political ambition over its defense can be lethal. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, who acknowledge Juan Linz originated the notion and term "semi-loyal democrats", in New York Times, September 8, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Semi-loyal democrats Rather than sever ties to antidemocratic extremists, semi-loyalists tolerate and accommodate them. Rather than condemn and seek accountability for antidemocratic acts committed by ideological allies, semi-loyalists turn a blind eye, denying, downplaying and even justifying those acts  — often via what is today called whataboutism. Or they simply remain silent. And when they are faced with a choice between joining forces with partisan rivals to defend democracy or preserving their relationship with antidemocratic allies, semi-loyalists opt for their allies. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, who acknowledge Juan Linz originated the notion and term "semi-loyal democrats", in New York Times, September 8, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
The Senate McConnell followed generations of  white supremacist southern obstructionists who had come before him. Ever since John Calhoun set foot in the Senate [in 1832], they had fought against Madison's vision of a majority-rule institution, forging new ways to impose their will on a country where progress threatened their power. Under McConnell, the Senate was finally remade in Calhoun's vision of minority rule. The only question that remains is whether it can be saved. Adam Jentleson, Kill Switch © 2021 Kwiple.com
Separation of powers The policy judgments, under our separation of powers, are supposed to come from Congress and the President. But they don’t when the Court refuses to respect the full scope of the delegations that Congress makes to the Executive Branch. When that happens, the Court becomes the arbiter — indeed, the maker—of national policy. … (“The Court, rather than Congress, will decide how much regulation is too much”). That is no proper role for a court. And it is a danger to a democratic order.  Elena Kagan, dissent in Biden v. Nebraska, et. al. © 2023 Kwiple.com
Sleepers at the wheel say The world's been made safe for democracy © 2018 Kwiple.com
Sleepers at the wheel say The Founding Fathers wanted “the people” to rule © 2016 Kwiple.com
Sleepers at the wheel say Things here can't really be that bad © 2018 Kwiple.com
Snapshot Mr Bolton has no patience for US democracy promotion, which gels with Mr Trump's worldview. Contrary to popular opinion, Mr Bolton is not a neoconservative. Neocons believe US values should be universal. Mr Bolton believes in aggressive promotion of the US national interest, which is quite different. John Bolton portrayed by Edward Luce © 2018 Kwiple.com
Snapshot If the US has someone whom historians will look back on as the gravedigger of American democracy, it is Mitch McConnell. Mitch McConnell portrayed by Christopher Browning © 2018 Kwiple.com
Snapshot The mastermind of the damage [to democratic norms], Mitch McConnell will come to be considered one of the greatest traitors to this country since Robert E.Lee, with this difference — McConnell has been trying to take us down from within. Mitch McConnell portrayed by Mary Trump in The Reckoning  © 2021 Kwiple.com
Social media The crusade against these apps is hardly groundless. But it has become a way of dodging the age and depth of civic rot, and not just in the US. Facebook is easier to confront than the prospect that mature democracies must live with a permanent mass of essentially unreachable citizens. To curse social media is to exonerate society. Janan Ganesh,, Financial Times, July 20, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Social media Left unchecked, the presently evolving information environment must be expected to unmake our democratic constitutional systems. Perhap not imminently, but with certainty over time. Larry D. Kramer, former dean of Stanford Law School © 2024 Kwiple.com
Social media Social media companies' mistake has been to assume that  unregulated speech from powerful people is a hallmark of democracy rather than a threat to it. Emily Bell, Financial Times, January 13, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Social media We now have to reckon that any election we have is actually being subverted before it begins. I fear for democracy. It's being made unworkable. Onora O'Neill © 2019 Kwiple.com
Socialism Strange as it may seem, a viable socialism must be nationalist. Its fundamental framework must be the nation and its citizens. For a democracy to function, its citizens must be clearly defined, their common commitment to the nation assumed. But socialists can be oblivious to this simple idea. At the Labour Conference in Brighton, the “remain” faction proposed that tem- porary residents from other EU countries be allowed to vote in its national elections. That would be subversive to democracy. John B. Judis, The Socialist Awakening © 2020 Kwiple.com
State of the union c All four of the narratives I've described emerged from America's failure to sustain and enlarge the middle-class democracy of the postwar years. They all respond to real problems. Each offers a value that the others need and lacks ones that the others have. Free America celebrates the energy of the unencumbered individual. Smart America respects intelligence and welcomes change. Real America commits itself to a place and has a sense of limits. Just America demands a confrontation with what the others want to avoid. … They all anoint winners and losers. … I don’t much want to live in the republic of any of them. George Packer, The Atlantic, July/August 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union The anti-democrat-in-chief asked, “Where's my Roy Cohn?” Anti-tyrants responded, “Where's our Gavrilo Princip?” © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union  The bigget political divide in America today  is not between Republicans and Democrats. It's between democracy and oligarchy. Hearing and using the same old labels prevents most people from noticing they're being shafted. Robert B. Reich, The System © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union [A] broad sweep of statistics reveals a peculiar weariness spreading through the economy. Belying breathless headlines about the fabulous opporunities that technology is about to bestow on society, it suggests that many rich market democracies have lost much of their dynamism. Their companies are getting old, and their labor markets are getting stuck. Productivity growth has slumped. And many workers in their prime are peeling off from the labor force. Eduardo Porter, New York Times, February 6, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union But anocracy, not autocracy, is our most immediate threat. Anocracy is usually transitional  — a repressive government allows reforms, or a democracy begins to unravel — and it is volatile. When a country moves into the anocracy zone, the risk of political violence reaches its peak; citizens feel uncertain about their government's power and legitimacy. Compared with democracies, anocracies with more democratic than autocratic features are three times more likely to experience political instability or civil war. Barbara F. Walter, Washington Post, January 24, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
State of the union c Democrats and Republicans agree: without the Cold War, there's no reason to promote democracy abroad © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union If America was a summer blockbuster, it would be called “Democracy: Endgame.” Bill Maher, Real Time with Bill Maher, May 3, 2019, after Attorney General William Barr lied to Congress and president Trump and the Department of Justice refused to honor subpoenas issued by Congress © 2019 Kwiple.com
State of the union Envoys in Washington compare the Trump children to princes and princesses in a royal court. That is a bit unfair to princes: such modern examples as William and Harry in Britain talk of duty, of humility, and of shunning politics precisely because they are unelected. The Economist, July 15, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union Is our democracy in danger? It is a question we never thought we'd be asking. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die  © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union  More a market, less a democracy  © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union The problem is not just that with politics no longer stopping at the water's edge, U.S. foreign policy could veer unpredictably from administration to administration. It is that the United States is taking on water itself. The country has entered what can only be characterized as an age of unreason, with large swaths of its population embracing wild conspiracy theories. The United States today looks like Athens in the final years of the Pelopponnesian War or  France in the 1930s: a once strong democracy that has become ragged and vulnerable. Jonathan Kirshner, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union The simple fact of the matter is that the world has never built a multiethnic democracy in which no particular ethnic group is in the majority and where political equality, social equality and economies that empower all have been achieved. We are engaged in a fight over whether to work together to build such a world. Danielle Allen, Washington Post, August 13, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union This is code red. The biggest threat to the integrity of our democracy today is in the Oval Office. Thomas Friedman, New York Times, February 18, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Surely you jest Apple calls its stores – which are private spaces – “town squares,” where you can shop 'til you drop but you can't hold political rallies except to support lowering taxes on profits earned abroad © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union No other democracy is heading towards a majority-minority future. The world has yet to see what happens to a society when its majority ceases to be one. Edward Luce, Financial Times, January 25, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union Our democracy is in serious danger. President Trump is either totally compromised by the Russians or is a towering fool, or both, but either way he has shown himself unwilling or unable to defend America against a Russian campaign to divide and undermine our democracy. Thomas Friedman, New York Times, February 18, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union The poor state of so many Americans is in part a product of plutocratic politics: a relentless and systematic devotion to the interests of the very rich. … a politics of low taxes, low social spending and high inequality is sustainable in a universal suffrage democracy only with a mixture of propaganda in favour of “trickle down” economics, splitting the less well off on cultural and racial lines, ruthless gerry- mandering and outright voter suppression. All this has indeed happened. These are the politics of “pluto-populism” or of “greed and grievance”. They have been stunningly successful in making Republicans attractive to many in the white working class. Martin Wolf, Financial Times, 2018/07/17 © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union Today, we may be witnessing a collision between the power of a remedy meant to curb presidential misconduct and the power of faction determined to defend against the use of that remedy on a president of the same party. But perhaps even more corrosive to our democratic system of governance, the President and his allies are making a comprehensive attack on the very idea of fact and truth. How can a democracy survive without acceptance of a common set of experiences? Adam Schiff, preface to Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report © 2019 Kwiple.com
State of the union There is a clear and present danger that American democracy will not withstand the destructive forces that are now converging on it. Our two-party system has only one party left that is willing to lose an election. The other is willing to win at the cost of breaking things that a democracy cannot live without. Barton Gellman, The Atlantic, January/February 2022 © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union c Trust is a problem © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union The United States is an anocracy for the first time in more than two hundred years. Let that sink in. We are no longer the world's oldest continuous democracy. That honor is now held by Switzerland, followed by New Zealand and then Canada. We are no longer a peer to nations like Canada, Costa Rica, and Japan, which are all rated +10 on the polity index. Barbara F. Walter, How Civil Wars Start [The Polity Score rates countries from -10 (most autocratic) to +10 (most democratic). Countries with scores between -6 and -10 are considered to be autocracies. Countries with  scores between +6 and +10 are considered to be democracies. Anocracies have scores between -5 and +5 (the U.S.'s 2020 score). Citizens have some democratic rights; leaders have lots of authoritarian powers. Civil strife is likely.] © 2022 Kwiple.com
Supreme Court [I]n the recent view of a majority on the U.S. Supreme Court, democratic responsiveness need not mean responding to all citizens equally. It can mean responding unequally, giving special weight to people or corporations that spend large amounts of money. Benjamin Page and Martin Gilens, Democracy in America?  [2017] © 2019 Kwiple.com
Supreme Court A system of government that makes the people subordinate to a committee of nine unelected lawyers does not deserve to be called a democracy. Antonin Scalia © 2021 Kwiple.com
Tech bros say Using algorithms to generate videos of people saying things they never said and conveying facial expressions for emotions they never felt that are so realistic humans can't detect the fakery poses no threat of more fake news; no threat of more people being subjected to character assassination; no threat of more people believing that everybody lies all the time; no threat to national security; no threat to democracy --> © 2018 Kwiple.com
Technology In actuality, the most crucial choices about the future of ordinary voters and their children are probably made not by Brussels bureaucrats or Washington lobbyists but by engineers, entrepreneurs, and scientists who are hardly aware of the implications of their decisions, and who certainly don't represent anyone. But voters can't see them or address them, so they lash out where they can. Yuval Noah Harari © 2016 Kwiple.com
Technology Information technology is continuing to leap forward; biotechnology is beginning to provide a window into our inner lives – emotions, thoughts, and choices. Together, infotech and biotech will create unprecedented upheavals in human society, eroding human agency and, possibly, subverting human desires. Under such conditions, liberal democracy and free-market economics might become obsolete. Yuval Harari, The Atlantic, October 2018 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Technology We understand the threat to democracy posed by platform technology. But less has been said about the dangers posed to our financial system as “likes” become “buys”. Rana Foroohar, Financial Times, July 25, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Trumpism The thing to fear from the Trump presidency is not the bold overthrow of the Constitution, but the stealthy paralysis of government; not the open defiance of law, but an accumulating subversion of norms; not the deployment of state power to intimidate dissidents, but the incitement of private violence to radicalize supporters. … Trump gambled that Americans resent each other's difference more than they cherish their shared democracy. So far, that gamble has paid off. David Frum, Trumpocracy  [2018] © 2019 Kwiple.com
Trumpism What we’re seeing, I liken it to a land, sea and air attack. The land attack is on voting rights. That is one of the ways that you begin to undermine democracy. The sea attack are these attacks against  teaching critical race theory and “divisive” topics, so you can erase people from American history and  erase the role of various people in American history. And the air attack is the loosening of gun laws  that we're seeing in Texas, Tennessee and Georgia.  This is a full-blown assault on American democracy that’s going after voting rights, that's going after education and that is reinforcing political violence as an acceptable method of bringing about your political aims. Carol Anderson, New York Times Magazine, March 20, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists They brought the Trumpocalypse upon the country and a post-Trumpocalypse country will have to find a way to either reconcile them to democracy — or to protect democracy from them. David Frum, Trumpocalypse  © 2020 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say By the way, the United States is not a democracy. Do you know what a democracy is? Two wolves and a sheep deciding what’s for dinner. You don’t want to be in a democracy. Majority rule: not always a good thing, Mike Johnson, in 2019, to parishioners at First Baptist Church of Haughton, LA © 2023 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say Democracy isn't the objective; liberty, peace, and prospefity [sic] are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that. Mike Lee, 2:24 AM · Oct 8, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say I'm not going to let Democrats and their water carriers in the media use Russia's attack on our democracy as a Trojan horse for partisan wish-list items that would not actually make our elections safer. Mitch McConnell, refusing to let the Senate vote on election security bills, leading to him being nicknamed “Moscow Mitch” © 2019 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say I no longer believe freedom and democracy are compatible. Peter Thiel © 2020 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say It's obvious to me, our founders hated democracy. Loren Culp, who claimed massive voter fraud after losing the 2020 race for governor in Washington state by a mere 545,000 votes, and is now the Trump-endorsed candidate running against Dan Newhouse, one of the ten Repubican Repreentatives who voted to impeach Trump in 2021  © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say “The left in the media — they're  all about democracy?” he ranted to me one day. “On November 8, the War Room  and the War Room  posse and all the little people at the school boards and things — we're gonna give you democracy shoved up your ass. Okay? We're gonna give you a democracy suppository.  Steve Bannon, quoted by Jennifer Senior, in The Atlantic, June 6, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say We’ve got so many regulations, taxes and controls and spending and everything. Get back to the fundamentals. Less government involvement. We should have an army, a military. That's  about it. Otherwise, just stay out of the way. … I tend to agree with Sandy, just hoping that we could start letting the Constitution be the Constitution and let us have our rights with freedom of speech and just start living the way that they did hundreds of years ago, when they believed in our country. Sandy, 48, white, Calif., property manager, and Michael, 65, white, Utah, retired, participants in New York Times focus group, asked about signs that would indicate to them that American democracy is healthy © 2023 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely.  We didn’t get all the way there on January 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it and replace it with this, right here. All glory is not to government. All glory to God. Jack Posobiec, the Pizzagate conspiracy theorist, addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference, (CPAC 2024), to applause and huzzahs © 2024 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say You look at what Russia did – you know, buying some Facebook ads to try to sow dissent and do it – and it's a terrible thing. But I think the investigations, and all of the speculation that's happened for the last two years, has had a much harsher impact on our democracy than a couple of Facebook ads. Jared Kushner © 2019 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say You put very sexy things like abortion and marijuana on the ballot,  and a lot of young people come out and vote. It was a secret sauce for disaster in Ohio. I don't know what they were thinking. Thank goodness that most of the states in this country don't allow you to put everything on the ballot. because democracies are not the way to run a country. Rick santorum, after Republicans in Ohio and elsewhere who attemped to ban abortion and prevent decriminalizing marijuana were defeated in the 2023 off-year elections © 2023 Kwiple.com
Tweeting When Trump tweeted, he demonstrated that the faith of a generation of liberal theorists – as well as their digital descendents – are misplaced: decentralization does not necessarily increase democracy, in the public sphere or in the state. Fred Turner © 2019 Kwiple.com
Twitter In 2018, according to the Pew Research Center, ninety-seven per cent of all tweets posted by American adults about national politics were posted by ten per cent of tweeters. A disproportionate number of the people in Twitter’s town hall are the sorts of people who were eligible to vote in 1820, before the first, Jackson-era expansion of the electorate: the wealthy, the educated, and the hyperpartisan. Twitter isn't the future of American democracy; it's the past. Jill Lepore, The New Yorker, March 9, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Ukraine Financial assistance is also critically important, and I would like to thank you, thank you very much, thank you for both financial packages you have already provided us with and the ones you may be willing to decide on. Your money is not charity. It’s an investment in the global security and democracy that we handle in the most responsible way. Volodymyr Zelensky, December 21, 2022, speech to Joint Session of Congresss © 2022 Kwiple.com
Unions Unless labor is powerful enough to be repected, it is doomed to degrading servitude. Without unions no such power is possible. Without unions industrial democracy is unthinkable. Without democracy in industry, that is where it counts most, there is no such thing as democracy in America. Walter Lippmann, Drift and Mastery  © 2021 Kwiple.com
Ukraine From now on, every history textbook will have a new section, “When Ukraine united the world”. When democracy grew teeth again. When tyranny received an answer in the language it understands. Volodymyr Zelensky, August 24, 2022 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Voter suppression It's a vicious cycle — which is exactly the point. First gin up fear about fraud, then use that fear to aggressively prosecute voting infractions, then use those prosecutions to create stricter laws, then use the stricter laws to induce more examples of fraud, then use those examples to gin up even more fear.  The potential impact on turnout is bad enough. But the cumulative effect of restrictive laws corrodes the democratic process itself. Vann R. Newkirk II, The Atlantic, January/February 2022 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Voting It's not the voting that's democracy, it's the counting. Tom Stoppard, Jumpers © 2021 Kwiple.com
Voting So long as I do not firmly and irrevocably possess the right to vote I do not possess myself. I cannot make up my mind – it is made up for me. I cannot live as a democratic citizen, observing the laws I have helped to enact – I can only submit to the edict of others. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Give Us the Ballot, We Will Transform the South” © 2016 Kwiple.com
Voting rights If a single statute represents the best of America, it is the Voting Rights Act. It marries two great ideals: democracy and racial equality. … If a single statute reminds of us of the worst of America, it is the Voting Rights Act. Because it was — and remains — so necessary. Elena Kagan, dissent in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee © 2021 Kwiple.com
Wannabe autocrats say He's now President for life. President for life. No, he's great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it's great. Maybe we'll give that a shot some day. Donald Trump, on China's President Xi Jinping getting its parliament to abolish its constitutional presidential term limits, to applause and cheers from attendees at a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago © 2018 Kwiple.com
Wannabe autocrats say The one that matters is me. I'm the only one that matters. Because when it comes [to] it, that's what the policy is going to be. Donald Trump, when asked about his administration's failure to staff the State Department with people having expertise in foreign countries © 2017 Kwiple.com
War  If a democracy does not trust its troops, then it shouldn't go to war. Jim Mattis, Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead © 2019 Kwiple.com
 
Wealth inequality [W]ealthy Americans wield a lot of influence. By investing money in politics, they can turn economic power into political power. Thus the United States suffers from what can be called “unequal democracy.” Benjamin Page and Martin Gilens, Democracy in America? © 2019 Kwiple.com