The sickness of the US democracy can be mainly described as follows:
1. The acceptance of demagoguery. Let’s not mince words, Trump was a demagogue, and he was elected President because of the prejudices he spewed. This issue is almost exclusively on the right-wing side.
2. The view political parties as sports teams rather than representative bodies. And it doesn’t end at blind support, US political rallies literally look cheer rallies. There are also their political hooligans… crazed people who don’t really care about politics, just that their team wins. This is a problem on the far left and right. Less so in the more centrist politics, but only because people who are genuinely centrist are mixed in with the political apathetic/politically neutral who generally gravitate to more centrist politics.
3. Far too many following political figures like some kind of cult. This exists on the left and right side but almost non-existent in the center. The two most concerning cults were Trump and Bernie Sanders. But both were generally attacking the same thing. Trumpists would primarily attack and harass the leftist politicians and brigade their media support. The problem with the Bernie Sanders cultists is they ALSO targeted leftist politicians. It got so bad that Sanders cultists were attacking other leftist politicians more viciously than the Trump cultists. These sorts are not interested in democracy, but rather “only through X can the world be saved.”
How do you fix this? Better education about democracy and its history for starters.
If there’s no consequence for supporting demagogues, no consequence for cult-like support of politicians, and no consequences for political party hooliganism, then these problems won’t go away.
Education is the first and most necessary line of defence for democracy. Democracy exists within the people. And if the people are too uneducated about proper democratic conduct, the problems above won’t go away.
I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.
