According to a report, the global index for free and fair elections suffered the biggest decline on record in 2023, while disputed elections are becoming a global phenomenon.
A shrinking voter turnout globally and increasingly contested election results are posing a risk to the credibility of democracy, a new report revealed on Tuesday.
The report published by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) said that global voter turnout between 2008 and 2023 plunged by 10 percentage points, going from 65.2 to 55.5.
Democratic elections are the modern equivalent of “bread and circuses”. A system cannot fail those it was never meant to function for. The only way to effect real change in the world is through revolution - as peaceful as we can make it. We must end capitalism before it ends us. And that starts with accepting the reality that the absolute best case scenario for democracy is to slightly limit harm.
What’s your alternative to democracy after this “peaceful revolution”? Who’s in charge? You?
Is this revolution anarchist, communist, fascist, or something else?
And what kind of democracy are you talking about? There are many varieties, with some being far better than others.
Sadly, my answer to this quite unsatisfactory: I can’t give you all of the answers, I am but one man, to act like I know the path to a perfect society would be arrogant to the point of excess. I want to start a conversation where we admit that the system we have is so fucking rigged that we have no chance to actually achieve meaningful change through that system, and talk about the alternatives.
Personally, I am an anarchist - so ideally, there would be no one “in charge”. I suppose another way of saying that would be that we would all be in charge. I believe in consensus-based decision making - it’s more or less what democracy should be - you could even consider it a form of democracy, if you like.
The more important part is the abolition of other unequal power structures, the worst of which is capitalism, undoubtedly. The problem with our system as it exists isn’t in the idea that people vote to elect leaders, it’s that we ignore all the other structures of power. Corporations don’t vote, but they have an absolute fuck load more political power than the combined voting power of all of their employees.