"We as citizens will need to be assured that a new government would have faith in democracy, Europeanism and freedom guaranteed by law,” Olga Tokarczuk’s says two weeks before Poland goes to the polls in a potentially pivotal election on 15 October.
"We need assurances that such a government would listen to us and respond to our needs, and not, like the present one, subordinate the majority of citizens to anachronistic ‘traditional values’ adhered to only by a 30% minority,”
The problem is that you can’t have a democracy if you allow antidemocratic ideas to be dominant in the political space. What you get in that case is a tyranny of the majority.
Tyranny of the majority is democracy. Democracy is ugly sometimes. It’s just better than everything else humanity has attempted. Democracy requires respecting the will of the majority of people who vote. Especially ideas you don’t like. I understand the reflex to try to shut down things we don’t like, but democracy is designed to work around authoritarian impulses like those by individuals.