As authoritarian leaders challenge democratic institutions around the world, some people are questioning whether democracy is even the best political system. In a wide-ranging conversation, writer Bret Stephens and social entrepreneur Yordanos Eyoel discuss why democracy is still our best hope — and offer ways we can learn to disagree more effectively in order to strengthen our societies.
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@brittonprice637
July 3, 2024 at 9:13 am
It’s called a psy-op. We don’t have a democracy in the U.S. we have a democratic republic. This is why when you hear talking heads say things like “threat to our democracy ” they mean threat to their regime.
@TheBHAitken
July 3, 2024 at 9:24 am
Kinda late to say “We should have done better…”
@algorithm6360
July 3, 2024 at 9:32 am
Decades of neoliberal bs and the result is Project2025 & Maga Facism. Planned by both parties to enrich us oligarchs…
@Dead_pixelz_
July 3, 2024 at 9:43 am
The media is not serving the public, they’re arms of the state, that’s why people don’t trust them. Not because of activism, but because they lie and frame their opinions as the truth. Express your positions but don’t pass it off as a fact. Also, enact the fairness doctrine again.
@meanderinoranges
July 3, 2024 at 9:58 am
No, pure democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding on what’s for dinner. We have zero democratic institutions at the federal level. We are a constitutional republic, not a democracy.
@stevo4535
July 3, 2024 at 10:34 am
I’m glad we in the U.S. are not in a democracy but rather a constitutional republic.
@mbergamin16
July 3, 2024 at 10:39 am
First you have to allow the conversation to take place, becoming ever more difficult in this age of censorship 🤷♂️
@Marshall1914
July 3, 2024 at 10:45 am
Y’all should read the book Democracy: The God That Failed.
@sinalco9015
July 3, 2024 at 11:16 am
It’s an obviousTrojan Horse. The only ones benefitting from open societies are big corps and the elites.
@Ninja9JKD
July 3, 2024 at 11:58 am
Democracy is equivalent to mob rule. The US is a constitutional republic, not a democracy. A democracy is a horrible idea as the politicians simply buy the people with promises and money. Mob rule is for fools.
@Purified-Bananas
July 3, 2024 at 12:41 pm
Democracy doesn’t require disagreement.
Democracy requires an allowance for disagreement.
@andersjohnson9565
July 3, 2024 at 1:27 pm
10:31 One of the main reasons that trust in the media has eroded is that the media started accusing people who disagreed with them, some of whom turned out to be absolutely correct, of spreading ‘disinformation.’
@RobertSteiner-tl2wz
July 3, 2024 at 3:28 pm
We are not a democracy, we are a constitutional republic!
@carkawalakhatulistiwa
July 3, 2024 at 8:40 pm
Disagreement definitely exists in a democracy Or another government system.
It’s not a democracy that requires disagreement . Democracy also requires acceptance of differences of opinion in order to achieve the same goal
@villagecpa
July 3, 2024 at 9:49 pm
Tell that to the Marxist Democrats and the “news” media – they don’t allow disagreement!
@asy9423
July 4, 2024 at 1:41 am
Have you been to China? China is totally different with Russia and you know what? China is lots of rural states. Totally different with developmental state with Korea and Japan. I think US is not good model for democracy. But it doesnt mean that I give applaud to autocracy one. It is not Yes or No and Good or Bad issue. It is cultural and combination thing
@elgalloazul
July 7, 2024 at 7:13 pm
Yes, the governance system in China is built on elections too.
@dingzhuxi
July 9, 2024 at 2:02 pm
@@elgalloazul Election as in “没有， 没有，没有“ That’s rich.
@elgalloazul
July 9, 2024 at 8:07 pm
@@dingzhuxi Ha! The same as where I live.
@flaviopnt
July 4, 2024 at 3:04 am
The problem is that on television talk shows and on social media, conversations are like boxing matches with fans. Nobody has an interest in changing their mind, nobody will say that what you say is right, even if they thought so, because it would be a defeat in front of their ultras. Many are also intellectually dishonest and in order to earn an appearance fee they are willing to speak badly of their own mother, if this pleases the niche they are referring to, and the same goes on social media, where there are likes and interactions and many are willing to write the worst stupidities in order to obtain them.
We live in a society in which there are more and more individualists, and many of them also want to erode the rights of the weakest, and not only.
When my father hears news about the war in Ukraine, he doesn’t care if innocent people are dying under the bombs thrown by a criminal, he is only interested in going back to paying diesel at the same price as in 2021, and for this reason he is on Putin’s side, and when he goes to vote he acts accordingly.
It is not easy to get out of this situation.
@SurfbyShootin
July 4, 2024 at 3:33 am
Democracy like when the natives of iceland collectively wanted to ban circumcision and then blackmailed with the the threat to its tourism by a piwerful but vanushingly small minority?
Is this the word democracy that you triumphantly beat your chest too by reapting it so many times?
@Ren-1979
July 4, 2024 at 4:40 am
I didn’t understand anything because there were commercials every 2 minutes…
@user-tg8qr4jr1n
July 4, 2024 at 9:36 am
It is an apparent means to please the people, but it is a secret plot to serve the interests of the major powers in the world… Democracy is not but a lie and it failed many times. But as definition democracy is not the main goal to achieve it is only a way to choose leaders who might hopefully be good.
@terrence0258
July 4, 2024 at 2:14 pm
His answer on why the media has lost trust is absolute nonsense. Forget the 30 year war the Conservative right has launched on the free press, why is it that the answer to regaining trust always focused on validating the far right white racists that voted for Donald Trump? The far left has no representation in the mainstream press. The closest would probably be the Young Turks. When Biden won, why was no one saying we should listen to progressives to regain their trust?
@mariaantoniettamontella9173
July 5, 2024 at 4:33 am
applausi. magnifico Bret
@charlesnyagah7423
July 5, 2024 at 10:39 am
Kenya is caught in the throes of a Swahili uprising in which the Gen Z is
expressing dissatisfaction with our form of democracy that enables the political class to lord over the economy to their disenfranchisement
@WhiteSpatula
July 5, 2024 at 12:12 pm
For me, the biggest indicator of weakness in regimes like China is the fact that nobody alive today ever chose it. Because of the hubris and ignorance of their ancestors, they were born into it. So, even amidst our democratic processes, we should remain ever mindful of how wrong it is to enslave unborn generations to our ideals.
@Newstatejournal1
July 5, 2024 at 5:19 pm
Maybe we should try a Promocracy!
@deninohcho6394
July 6, 2024 at 8:09 am
Free Palestine 🇵🇸 ❤
@joeldheath
July 6, 2024 at 6:32 pm
Allowing bad-faith actors to game the media is a significantly bigger problem than the echo chamber effect. The old-school objectivity of reporting the facts sans commentary/context is an opportunity for lies to spread faster than the truth — a neutral headline that says “[Person] says [false statement]” reads as “[false statement] is true” to the uninformed. That combined with profit-driven media that needs to grab attention to stay financially solvent creates a world where there are strong incentives to fan the flames of conflict and give undue credence to radical, post-truth positions simply because they are hard to ignore regardless of whether they have any merit. Our news landscape has become a junk food buffet and telling individual consumers that they need to be smarter about news consumption isn’t going to change that. We need to fine a way to make boring news profitable and sensationalism economically unviable.
@plastic_machinery_extruder
July 7, 2024 at 10:14 am
Arrogance is continuing 😂
@DileepaRanawake
July 9, 2024 at 4:38 pm
In spirit of this talk. I disagree that democracy should be about growth. It should be about delivering primarily improving the welfare of people in a democracy. I disagree we should evaluate all investments in their economic return (as with chinas belts and road initiative). Western media also is frequently propaganda in a different way to Chinas.
I do agree that democracy is vital and more resilient than authoritarianism. That constructive debate is important.
He doesn’t mention that one of the biggest causes for erosion of democracy is financialisation – the shift of power from people to people with extreme wealth who own and run things non-democratically and buy our media to promote their propaganda.
A good democracy has a media that is free from private interests and one where people are empowered and one where our politicians are held to account, not in growth but how their actions improve or impact public welfare and the health of our planet. Growth, our economy is simply a means that has been confused and communicated in place of social welfarr – the outcome