The last vote

THREE years ago, your blogger published a book called “The Last Vote”, a warning about the threats to democracy. It got a couple of nice reviews but disappeared into the morass that faces 95% of all published books; readers have limited time and money and there are too many tomes to choose from.

But the arguments made in the book seem even more pertinent today, with authoritarian leaders in control of Hungary, Poland, Russia and Turkey, and with the American election just four days away. 

First, democracy is threatened by a combination of complacency and cynicism. In many western countries, it has existed for all of living memory. It is thus the thing people have to rebel against. Politicians are held extremely low in public esteem; mocking or insulting a leader is a sure way to get a cheap laugh on a comedy show. They are assumed to be in it for themselves or to be the creatures of shadowy interests. The right to vote is not valued in the way it was when people were denied it - when women and the working classes fought for the right to vote in the 19th and early 20th centuries. “Why vote? It only encourages...Continue reading

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