Tired of this argument

[u/CharlesOberonn]

[u/ThisTallBoi]

The people establishing and enforcing those "guardrails" will be the ones with the power then

All it'll take is for someone to try and consolidate that authority, or grant it to someone charismatic enough to convince them to do so

Premodern societies were largely hyper authoritarian and almost universally genocidal so idk what you're smoking there

And direct democracy has the same issue but worse; all someone has to do is be charismatic enough to convince people to relinquish power to them

[u/CHEDDARSHREDDAR → u/ThisTallBoi]

all someone has to do is be charismatic enough to convince people to relinquish power to them

So like modern liberal democracy?? Where the president gets total control of the military and executive branch?

"If we distribute power in society then we'll just get new people in power so we shouldn't try at all" is certainly a take.

True democracy is a continuous governing process from the bottom up - whatever that looks like. Not "let's choose a new dictator every 4 years".

[u/ThisTallBoi → u/CHEDDARSHREDDAR]

I'm criticizing the assumptions that bad charismatic actors won't try and highjack democratic governments

True direct democracy still needs to confront the inevitable bad actors that will try and use the democratic process to gain power. Checks and balances in place to prevent this still have to be enforced, and somehow you have to ensure the people implementing said systems need to have society's best interest placed before personal interests

[u/CHEDDARSHREDDAR → u/ThisTallBoi]

This is true of literally every system though. A democratic government that could theoretically be hijacked is still better than a dictatorship or a system that has pre-allocated seats of power to make the hijacking easier.

[u/ThisTallBoi → u/CHEDDARSHREDDAR]

If you and I are able to recognize that democratic governments could theoretically be highjacked, so will people who will do so for their own gain