My main bug said something important

"Democracy can be great

but in order for it to work well it relies on a large percentage of the populace being well informed about all the issues and rational enough that they are willing to change their position when they are presented evidence against what they currently believe. So, yeah, democracy is doomed.

The days of me not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle.

by bugman222 on Aug 1, 2016 | 10:39 PM up reply  rec  flag"

         

The above comment from bugman on Detroit Bad Boys is part of a thread where people are discussing democracy and the current election cycle.  As usual, DBB has many interesting things to say.  But bugman's comment really hit the mark for me in terms of what is wrong with our democracy.  It also opened up an idea that I wanted to address further.  That is the part about the populace needing to be "rational enough that they are willing to change their position when they are presented evidence against what they currently believe.  So, yeah, democracy is doomed."  Bugman is usually more optimistic than this, but I think he's right on point here.  We do have a problem.  People are not willing to change their positions any more, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. Why is this?  Are people less smart than they used to be?  Maybe, but I doubt that's the problem.  I think the problem is that they are more "dug-in" to their positions.  And what causes people to dig in to their positions is feeling vulnerable.  So, for example, Trump uses fear of immigrants, minorities, other religions, etc. to fuel people's insecurities. Those people feel the fear and respond by digging in to their positions, even though they have nothing to fear and their positions make no sense.  Trump keeps banging the fear drum, his followers stay afraid and entrenched.  And we've now arrived at bugman's comment: people unwilling to change their position.

So, in my opinion, the way to have a chance at getting through to those people is to help them feel secure.  If they were less afraid, they might be able to look more rationally at their opinions and make better decisions.  

Thanks to bugman for the inspiration and DBB for the conversation.