Democracy is being Taken from Us
And how we get it back
tl;dr the below is a review of A.C. Grayling’s new book ‘The Good State: on the Principles of Democracy’. I argue that contemporary challenges to democracy are significant and the world risks giving away arguably its greatest achievement.
No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought.
— John Stuart Mill
By the people, for the people
I watched Trump’s inauguration from an office in a tall New York building, two blocks from another tall building bearing the now-President’s name. It was cold and someone passed around drinks as we huddled in front of a computer monitor, watching the President speak before what was still a crowd, even if it wasn’t as large as he would have wished. I was glad I hadn’t taken the day off work to drive up to Washington and stand in the rain watching in person. At our small gathering, someone proposed a toast to the death of democracy, which I thought was strange, or maybe strange was the norm. After all, the man had been elected. It was due to the particularities of the US electoral system (and…
