Undermining Democracy

2020-11-27 12:10

American democracy is an information system, in which the information isn't bits and bytes but citizens' beliefs.

As the democratic theorist Adam Przeworski puts it, democracy is "a system in which parties lose elections." These beliefs can break down when political insiders make bogus claims about general fraud, trying to cling to power when the election has gone against them.

It's obvious how these kinds of claims damage Republican voters' commitment to democracy.

The claims of Republicans like Senator Mike Lee of Utah that America is not really a democracy might become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The fundamental problem is Republican insiders who have convinced themselves that to keep and hold power, they need to trash the shared beliefs that hold American democracy together.

News URL

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/11/undermining-democracy.html