Demagogues have always been part of democracy.
A demagogue (Mirriam Webster) is…
(1) a political leader who tries to get support by making false claims and promises and using arguments based on emotion rather than reason
(2) a leader championing the cause of the common people in ancient times
In the first democracy, the people voted to exclude women, and the poor from power; voted for apparently unpopular and expensive wars with their neighbours; and voted for exile or death sentences on people who voiced opinions against them. In the end, the return of the tyrants may have been a welcome stability. And all of this was done because the average man is pretty average, and can be moved by rhetoric, confirmation bias, and the skillful orator; and is almost immune to reason.
I have seen this in the UK. Europe have given us pollution laws that have cleaned up our beaches, employment laws that have restricted the worse forms or our capitalism; human rights laws which have limited our police powers; and laws against racism and discrimination. They are even talking of having a basic a basic wage for all whether they work or now, for whatever reason. And the common people have voted against all this, and placed their hopes in a Tory 1% government. These are the people who outsourced your job; closed your local school; forced up house prices and increased the top limits of loans, and repossessed your house when you could not keep up the payments; and are trying to break up the NHS, and charge you for going to see your doctor. Those guys aren’t going to save you. They are so not. Look at them: there is a small kleptarch clique who right now is trying to force through Brexit unconstitutionally because they fear they do not have the following of the rest of the House of Commons.
Me today, you tomorrow.
So, what’s the deal with Zuckerberg, Fox News, Murdoch, et hoc genus omne? They are rich people, and I expect they all like the way things are going. However, they can claim to just be representing the political scene as they find it. But, in doing so, they reduce every argument to a face-to-face confrontation with soundbytes. They make Brexit and Trump happen, and say ‘it wasn’t me’, and ‘the constitution says I can, so there’.
So, what can we do? I don’t really know. I feel there ought to be some anti-twitter where you cannot post anything that isn’t a reasoned argument of less than 1K bytes with diagrams. I feel debates should be written rather than spoken, and the speaker should not be seen; so oratory and passion can not be used to move the mob. Debaters should be allowed to use notes and diagrams, and to reply in their own time. Something like that, maybe?
It won’t be easy. The demagogues have always been there. They are each dug in like a toad in a stone. It won’t be easy to shift them.
