By Hiran de Silva
Why the Old Assumptions No Longer Hold, and What Must Change
Democracy is widely treated as a sacred object: unquestionable, timeless, and morally superior by default. But democracy is not a religion. It is a system. And like any system, it only works if its underlying assumptions still hold.
For a long time, they did.
Today, they don’t.
This article explains what democracy actually is, why it once functioned tolerably well, why it is now structurally broken, and what minimum changes are required if it is to work again in the modern world.
What Democracy Is (and What It Assumes)
At its core, democracy rests on a simple principle:
One person, one vote.
Every adult citizen—regardless of wealth, class, education, religion, gender, or status—has an equal say. The majority decides who governs or which policy direction is chosen.
But this simplicity hides several critical assumptions:
- Voters act independently
- Voters possess basic reasoning capacity
- Voters are not systematically manipulated
- Campaign influence can be constrained
- Truth matters more than charisma
Democracy does not require everyone to be equally intelligent or equally informed. It merely assumes that the population, taken as a whole, falls within a tolerable range of reasoning ability—and that extremes are statistically absorbed by the normal distribution.
For decades, this was broadly true.
Why Democracy Used to Work (Imperfectly, But Well Enough)
Historically, democracy had built-in stabilisers.
1. Political apathy filtered itself out
Large numbers of people simply did not vote. They were disengaged, uninterested, or lacked confidence in understanding political issues. By abstaining, they effectively removed themselves from decision-making. Crude as it sounds, this helped the system.
2. Influence was limited by cost
Campaigns required money: printing, posters, radio slots, television advertising. Spending caps and transparency rules meant influence could be bounded and audited.
3. Manipulation had friction
Mass persuasion was slow, expensive, and visible. Lies could be challenged. Sources could be traced.
Even with flaws—charismatic demagogues, emotional appeals, tribal loyalties—the system retained enough friction to prevent total capture.
The Charisma Problem (Which Always Existed)
Democracy has always been vulnerable to charismatic figures—people trusted not because of evidence or competence, but because they feel authentic.
History shows a recurring pattern:
The most persuasive personalities are often the least honest.
Figures such as Boris Johnson, Donald Trump, and Nigel Farage demonstrate this problem vividly. Their appeal was not rooted in policy coherence or truthfulness, but in emotional identification, grievance, humour, or perceived rebellion against “the system”.
This defect was tolerable when influence was limited.
It became catastrophic when influence became free, infinite, and untraceable.
The Smartphone Rupture: What Changed
Around fifteen years ago, democracy crossed a structural breaking point.
The key change was not social media itself
It was universal smartphone adoption.
Every citizen—including those previously disengaged, apathetic, or excluded—was suddenly plugged into a constant, personalised stream of information.
The very people who once opted out of democracy were now:
- Reachable
- Targetable
- Emotionally activatable
And they were reached not through facts, but through identity, grievance, and anger.
The End of the Level Playing Field
Traditional campaign regulation assumed:
Influence scales with money.
That assumption is now false.
Today:
- A lie costs nothing
- Virality is algorithmic
- Reach is exponential
- Accountability is absent
A person in a bedroom, pub, or bus stop can inject misinformation into millions of feeds with a single click. Worse, people cluster socially with those like themselves, creating self-reinforcing echo chambers.
The result is mass manipulation without attribution.
Brexit as the Case Study
The UK’s EU referendum exposed the failure completely.
As journalist Carole Cadwalladr documented, millions of previously disengaged voters were targeted with emotionally resonant, content-light messaging.
Three words—“Take Back Control”—outperformed years of policy analysis.
The referendum itself had multiple mutually exclusive interpretations of what “Leave” meant. The electorate voted for incompatible futures, ensuring that any outcome would betray most of those who supported it.
This was not democratic deliberation.
It was behavioural exploitation.
A Historical Warning: When Religion Becomes the Lever
This pattern is not new.
In 1960s Ceylon (Sri Lanka), a government was elected by mobilising religious identity. Once in power, it followed through—introducing a lunar calendar based on Buddhist observance, despite its incompatibility with global economic systems.
The policy was later abandoned as unworkable.
But defenders said only one thing:
“That’s what we voted for.”
Democracy had functioned procedurally—while failing catastrophically in outcome.
Why “Vote Them Out Next Time” Is No Longer Enough
The traditional democratic remedy—“If they lie, vote them out”—assumes:
- Truth eventually emerges
- Damage is reversible
- Accountability exists
None of these are guaranteed anymore.
A politician can:
- Lie to win
- Govern in contradiction
- Entrench power
- Leave irreversible harm
And face no meaningful consequence.
What Must Change If Democracy Is to Survive
Democracy cannot survive charisma without constraint.
At minimum, four changes are essential:
1. Real-time accountability for misinformation
False claims used in campaigns must be publicly flagged, traceable, and sanctioned before voting occurs—not years later.
2. Campaign liability
If misinformation benefits a campaign, the campaign is responsible, regardless of whether the lie originated “organically”.
3. Penalties that matter
Electoral deception must carry serious consequences: disqualification, fines, or removal from office.
4. Truth-weighting systems
We already verify aircraft, medicine, and finance. Politics cannot remain the only domain where lying is consequence-free.
The Hard Truth
Democracy assumes good faith.
Social media monetises bad faith.
Until that conflict is resolved, democracy will continue to select the most effective manipulators, not the most capable leaders.
Acknowledging this is not anti-democratic.
It is the minimum act of honesty required to preserve democracy at all.
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