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this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2025
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UK Politics
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Brexit was a lesson on how a critical mass of gullible voters swallowed a bunch of outrageous lies peddled by anti-Europe politicians.
MAGA was a lesson on how a critical mass of gullible voters swallowed a bunch of outrageous lies peddled by Trump.
The lessons here being:
The biggest argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. Or something like that.
Maybe. But in a democracy the voters choose what they want, whether you like their choice or not.
Maybe the political centre needed to do a better job of serving the people who ultimately voted for Brexit and Trump. Those people felt that politicians didn't care about them at all.
Yes I know. As Churchill said, democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. But really, when you see how dumb the voting public is, has been and always will be, repeating the same terrible mistake over and over again, it's fucking depressing.
I get your frustration... and maybe some voters have been just genuinely mistaken. But calling voters dumb just pushes them away and makes them more likely to vote for some alternative. Their reaction is "you think I'm dumb? Then fuck you, I'm not going to vote for what you want".
If the political centre wants to beat populist causes like Brexit and Reform UK then the centre needs to try to include everyone - even those tempted by Reform. I guess that's what I'm trying to say.
Most voters are effectively as thick as two short planks.
This is immutable fact, demonstrated repeatedly throughout history. Whether or not you or they like the fact is irrelevant, the fact remains; most voters are easily led by their emotions, only able to focus on one issue at a time, and are tribal and short-sighted. In short, stupid.
You need to work with the truth, find a way to harness the stupidity. Trying to convince yourself and others that people en mass aren't dumb, easily led animals will eventually drive you to madness.
That attitude probably won't win any political contests though... voters do not like being thought of as stupid. They want their concerns taken seriously. If we have a political system where we don't listen to certain members of the public then that's basically autocracy.
I don't disagree, but unless we can manage the stupid, democracy will always die to lowest common denominator populism.
I think democracy does a pretty good job of surviving when you have free and fair elections, and proportional representation probably makes politics even more democratic. In European countries that have maintained free and fair elections, they generally haven't plunged into populism. Macron defeated Le Pen twice, for example. AfD have obviously grown their base in Germany, but they haven't entered government. Hungary is arguably ruled by a populist, but some people would say their politics aren't really free and fair anymore. If their politics remained free and fair then populism might have less power.
What you're saying is that to beat the populists, you have to pretend to take the voting morons as seriously as the populists do. And yeah, I get it, it's the least terrible stragegy really. But beyond the facade, those with an education and a working brain really dislike having to fake respect for those who don't deserve any.
Pretending probably isn't enough. If a political movement (such as a centrist or pro-Europe movement) wants to win then it has to take all voters seriously, surely. Or at least as many as possible.
Do you think prisoners deserve any respect? Or do you think they are victims of genetics, bad luck, upbringing etc?
I am not sure where to draw the line for free-will or even if it exists.
We need a better public education system but that isn't going to solve much in our lifetime.
You know a moron who shouldn't vote when you see one. It doesn't matter if they're victims of bad genes or bad upbringing: some people just aren't fit to decide important things. In fact, I'd argue a majority of the population isn't.
But you hit the nail on the head: where do you draw the line?
In this case, where is that hypothetical line that decides those who are "good enough" to votes and those who aren't?
Of course, it's impossible to make the distinction because the decision is almost completely arbitrary. There is no well-established, proven set of scientific criteria to decide whether a human being is worthy of the right to vote.
So we do the next best thing: we let everyone vote. That's democracy. We let everyone vote because not letting everyone vote is always worse. But that doesn't mean it doesn't make me retch when I see a cretin in a MAGA hat who doesn't even know basic history, geography or civics proudly tell you on TV that he voted Trump because Trump'll fix it.
Here in Australia the Left overwhelmingly is kept that we have compulsory voting.
I however think it would not be so difficult to have a civics test before citizens are given licence to vote. We do it with driving after all.
Or science (vaccines, climate change, statistics). Better education at school would definitely help. Half of USAmericans cannot read being 6th grade level. A quarter don't know we orbit the sun. 40% didn't know how long it takes a year to orbit the sun.
The problem is who controls the choices they get.
Nonsense. They wouldn't be able to do a thing, those voters lives in a propaganda bubble. Also the brexit referendum wasn't democracy. It was supposed to be advisory only. An actual referendum on such a matter would never have been a simple majority decision in any actual democracy.
This was the opposite of democracy and blaming people who actually opposed this instead of the people who acutally orchestrated it is disingenous at best.
I'm not blaming remainers or leavers or anyone. But if the political centre wants to beat populist causes like Brexit, Trump, or Reform UK, then the political centre needs to appeal to voters who are tempted to vote for populist causes. E.g. if Starmer wants to win another election, he will have to win the votes of some people who will be deciding whether to vote for Labour or for Reform UK.
As for Brexit being democracy or not, I think it was an expression of democratic will. But I think it would have been democratically valid to have a second referendum asking what kind of Brexit people wanted, because the first referendum did not make that clear. Britain could have stayed in the EU single market while still leaving the EU itself for example (Norway and Switzerland both take part in the single market, but they're not in the EU).
Also another thing that could improve democracy in the UK would be proportional representation. In the 2017 UK general election, the right-wing parties (Tories + DUP) only got about 43% of the vote between them. Meanwhile, Labour + Lib Dem + SNP + Green got about 52% of the vote between them. So there could have been a centre-left majority, under proportional representation. This could have resulted in the UK staying in the EU single market at least.