The axiom that defines democracy as two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner certainly highlights one of the historical flaws of this form of government, but as democracy evolved through the ages it has become plagued by far more sinister and deadly elements.
Last July, the leaders of Spain, Chile, Brazil, Colombia and Uruguay met in La Moneda Palace in Santiago to confront this very problem, blaming “disinformation, extremism of all kinds, the advance of hatred, corruption, the concentration of power and inequality."
Democracy, as we know it, is mortally wounded and the best thing we can do for it is to let it die and replace it with a more idoneous form of governance that includes all that is best of the democratic ideals that have since been usurped.
The seven flaws I will cover are like a cancer that has spread to different organs of a body so insidiously that it can no longer be expurgated without fatally damaging the whole system. Today’s democracy can be likened to a zombie beetle at the mercy of the Eryniopsis lampyridarum fungus (which represents the expediency of the power brokers) that controls it.
1. Partisanship
This is the traditional weakness relating to the dictatorship of the majority. As Henrik Ibsen put it, though perhaps a bit too crudely:
“The majority never has right on its side. Never, I say! That is one of these social lies against which an independent, intelligent man must wage war. Who is it that constitutes the majority of the population in a country? Is it the clever folk, or the stupid? I don’t imagine you will dispute the fact that at present the stupid people are in an absolutely overwhelming majority all the world over.”
In a sound democracy, the majority should be well educated, thoroughly informed and attuned and responsive to everyone’s human rights. This has rarely been the case, with the masses so controlled and deprived of opportunities to refinement that, overwhelmed with their own needs, they learned to care little about anybody else’s requirements.
Meanwhile, the few watchful citizens end up like voices crying out in a desert. Of course, the majority must be satisfied, but history has shown that “bread and circuses” (Juvenal) and “opium” (Marx) is all that is needed to do the trick.
All too often, minorities bear the brunt, while the string pullers reap the benefits. These manipulators were once the politicians themselves; not any more. Now the politicians have also become marionettes, only that they are more comfortable ones and enjoy the semblance of power.
2. Compromised politicians
Politicians or rulers have rarely been known for being champions of ethical prowess. Epithets like “the great” and “the good” often relate to the usefulness of rulers with respect to religious authorities or other factions, rather than to their actual moral principles.
After espousing Christianity, Constantine “the Great”, for instance, slaughtered a host of his relatives including his wife and dutiful son; while Charlemagne, another darling of the church, was responsible for forced conversions and massacres of thousands of Saxons. The list of honoured murderers goes on and is not confined to Christendom or despots.
However, with the onset of the industrial revolution, politics and politicians began to change dramatically; and not for the better. With the expansion of industries and the wealth that was accrued through wage-theft, conglomerates became powerful enough to shape the political landscape to suit their interests.
Politicians could be bought or pressured like never before through donations, bribes, lobbies, and expensive and elaborate traps that would lead to blackmail. As Dan Fante put it when describing American politics:
“All American politicians are bought and paid for by American lobbyists. We no longer have representative government here. We breed monsters like Kissinger… Our senate and congress are run by pay-offs and special interest money. And the fun part is that most Americans are asleep about it.”
In countries like the United States or the United Kingdom, where a two-party system tends to dominate, the same manipulators have their paws in both camps, ensuring that whichever party wins, their bidding will be guaranteed. Meanwhile the duped electorate makes its way to the polls trusting that democracy is sound, while individually knowing in their hearts that plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose (the more things change, the more they stay the same).
3. The manipulated media
Controlling politicians, and as a consequence policy and legislation, is not always enough. By orchestrating the narrative to legitimise the status quo, when this suits the power brokers, or the redirection of events when this is preferable, the general public can be immunised from the dangerous discomfort which could lead to revolution. Hence the symbiotic relationship that often exists between the media and the ultra-wealthy.
Examples abound on a daily basis. “The war" in Gaza is another prime example. Referring to what is happening in Gaza as a “war” creates a semblance of equivalency, which cannot be further from the truth.
As Francesca Albanese highlighted when speaking at a gathering at the Circo Massimo in Rome, organised by Il Fatto Quotidiano, on September 13:
“You cannot wage war against an occupied population. You just don’t. It simply isn’t allowed. The moment you do, you enter into another category altogether — that of aggression.”
The Special Rapporteur for Palestine also highlighted at the same event that if we were to hold a minute’s silence for every child slaughtered since the genocide began, it would take two whole weeks (night and day) to complete the tribute. Yes, the media is presenting us some of the facts, but sometimes, they are so watered down that they are as good as lies. All because, whether we like it or not, Israel is in the prompt corner dictating the script.
As Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media states: “The mass media serve as a system for communicating messages and symbols to the general populace. It is their function to amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behaviour that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society. In a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfil this role requires systematic propaganda.”
Such an apparatus consumes democracy at its very core.
4. An engineered education system
Why leave it only to the media, when you can start the process at the kindergarten? We do not need to go back to days of brainwashing catechisms or Hitler’s book burning frenzies to see how easy it can be to mould individuals.
Trump’s America is reenacting the process before our very eyes. Fortunately, teachers are not so easily bought, but sadly, when their institutions are attacked, they too become vulnerable. Harvard University is one of the few that is fighting back, but it is doing so at a huge price.
Even so, Trump felt so powerful compared to the institution that he instructed his Education Secretary, Linda McMahon: “Don’t negotiate with them, they’ve been very bad.” Many institutions, however, just do not have the resources to resist and they therefore have to bend or break under governmental pressure.
Once Christianity became state-sponsored, it did not take that many generations to make pagan Rome Christian. How many will it take to make us all compliant to Mamon? There can be no democracy without freedom of thought and an education system that cultivates critical thinking.
A semblance of democracy is more dangerous that dictatorship, because in the first scenario people can be duped indefinitely.
5 and 6. Inward looking and short-term thinking
Stuff climate change! My political career shall have long ended by then…
As long as the marionettes are firmly tied to their strings, the power brokers care little which ones will play in their productions. This, however, is not the case when it comes to the politicians themselves. It is this scrambling for votes that adds credence to the notion of democracy, even though ultimately, they are all playing to the same tune.
Of course, there are different factions at the very top (the string pullers), but what they can all agree on is that a pseudo-democracy works in their favour. The politicians themselves, therefore, have to promise the world to the electorate to garner as many votes as possible.
Moreover, they have to at least keep some of those promises (as long as they do not interfere with the interests of their masters) in order to get voted in again and again. This creates a focus on policies which can generate immediate results, to the detriment of long-term planning. “Stuff climate change! My political career shall have long ended by then,” is what probably goes through the minds of these so-called leaders, and the same applies to most necessary reforms that do not impact the short span of their political careers. This is all the more dangerous when it leads to the luring notion of infinite growth, which is an assured recipe for disaster in our context of limited resources.
Coupled with this time aspect, is the one regarding space. Just as political terms are man-made conventions, which are not fit for purpose as they currently operate, national borders are equally so, except that their impact on democracy is even more damaging.
Nowadays, many of the existential issues affecting humanity are global, like pollution, pandemics, climate change, loss of biodiversity and depleted resources. By focussing on local issues, which is what many politicians do considering their voters care little about the larger issues, the latter are allowed to spiral out of control. The string-puller also disregard the larger issues as they are unlikely to affect them directly in the foreseeable future.
Our borders are choking us, spurred by the nationalism that many politicians fan as a means to garner more votes. Moreover, this mentality creates and “us” and “them” divide that often dehumanises anyone residing beyond these man-made boundaries. This is, another curse of modern democracy. The United Nations and international law were meant to safeguard humanity from these narrow perspectives, but as the Gaza genocide keeps reminding us, these institutions have less teeth than a Baleen Whale.
7. Abuse of power
Abuse of power is one of the most insidious of the liabilities of our evolved democracy. From the benign expression of the will of the people, it morphed into a despot of Machiavellian proportions.
With every generation, the noose around the neck of our freedoms has been tightened. Our liberties are gradually being curtailed as we sleepwalk into a dystopian tyranny. Our hard-earned income is plundered for taxes that go towards subsidising big business, such as the oil, arms, and the meat and dairy industries, which are among the main destroyers of our planet, while health and education services are left to languish. Meanwhile, smaller businesses and individuals are plagued with laws, bylaws and unjust charges or fines that doom many to failure.
In countries that prided themselves as champions of democracy, like the UK and the US, fundamental freedoms are being usurped at an accelerated rate. The British government, for instance, labelled Palestine Action a terrorist organisation on 5 July 2025, after activists damaged two Royal Air Force refuelling planes at Brize Norton by spraying paint into their engines as a protest against Britain’s complicity in the genocide in Gaza.
Since then, police have arrested more than 1,600 people for backing the group, with a large number of detentions linked to sit-in demonstrations in Parliament Square on 9 August and 6 September. Meanwhile, in the US, anti-Zionist and anti-genocide protestors, including students and lecturers, are brutally attacked and arrested by government forces on a recurring basis.
The abuse infiltrates every aspect of our existence, from a legal system only the rich can afford, to the selling of our basic necessities, like water, to those who would profit from them to the detriment of the majority of citizens.
The abuse of power does not stop there, however. The assassination (Jeff German, Ján Kuciak, Daphne Caruana Galizia…) and criminalising (Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, Julian Assange…) of journalists and whistleblowers in the so-called free world, is a testament to the fact that imposing laws is not always enough for politicians to enforce their will.
They indulge in subterfuge dealings and will not stop at anything to prevent these from being exposed. Our so-called democracy has placed us at the mercy of monsters.
No more lullaby’s, no more lies
We need to wake up before we wake up dead. The Santiago Summit suggested global digital governance, combatting disinformation, initiatives to revive multilateralism and social equality as measures that could reset democracy on the right path.
These are noble endeavours, but how exactly they will be achieved is another matter. When asked what he got wrong, in an interview with EL PAÍS earlier this year, the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, replied:
“In believing that I could make a revolution by governing, when revolutions are done by the people.”
These are powerful words. President Petro appeared to be calling for that very revolution while in New York for the United Nations General Debate, leading to his visa being withdrawn by the United States (though he was already flying home by then). Perto is right. Diplomacy will achieve nothing when faced with ruthless autocrats like Trump and Putin and the powerbrokers, both visible and invisible behind them. We need a revolution and we need it soon, followed by a society that is void of billionaires and bullying mega-states. Only then will true democracy flourish.
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