...can we agree that a healthy democracy depends on an well-informed populace...

Yes we can!

Not so fast. While that’s certain ideal, I would venture to say the only time in the nation’s history that was true was in the immediate aftermath of the Revolutionary War when only landed, presumably educated white men could vote. Since that tine we have seen long periods with vast corruption: bosses telling workers how to vote, unions telling workers how to vote, the sudden influx of entire classes of people who never paid attention until they were enfranchised (blacks, later women). Immigrants who couldn’t even speak the language voting in significant numbers.

We’ve seen machine politics in cities like New York and Chicago: Boss Tweed, Richard Daley. We’ve seen decades of the American public ignoring international crises and gathering storms, and others of the American public simply going along with wrongheaded policies (Vietnam, Iraq2, Afghanistan). We’ve watched destructive social experiments like Prohibition come and go and we’ve seen the deleterious effects of other policies which were absurd on their face (marijuana, trickle-down, know-nothing politics)

…and somehow we have come through it all and found ourselves in the enviable position of being the most powerful country in the history of the world. And the richest.

Maybe it’s just all been luck. Or maybe there’s some kind of special sauce in “democracy”, as Britain and Germany and Japan and lots of others seem to validate. And sure, there have been rough spots and bumps but they’re still (mostly) coming out the other side in pretty good shape.

Healthy democracy? Yeah, that would be great. Maybe just “democracy” is enough?