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In some works [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|democracy is bad]]. It is generally presented as an ineffectual form of government highly prone to corruption, demagoguery and takeovers by radicals and, in some portrayals, as a form of mob rule which tramples on individual rights to appeal to public sentiment. A popular saying about democracy, to this perspective, is "democracy is like two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner."
It can also be presented this way by authors who don't necessarily approve of other forms of government, but are cynical enough that they consider ''all'' forms of government to be flawed (with the inclusion of no government at all). As [[Winston Churchill]] put it "Democracy is the worst form of government, [[No Except Yes|except for all the other methods that have been tried]]".
Indeed, before the Dutch Republic, the term "Democracy" was more-or-less synonymous with "Anarchy" or "Mob Rule," believed by many to be a utopian idea that could never work in practice and would lead to the collapse of society. The term is rarely used this way today. Indeed the main Anarchist critique of Democracy as it exists today is that they see it as not really democratic at all. Also, they would distinguish between what's called "representative" democracy (in their view a small elite leading people by the nose) and participatory or direct democracy in a voluntary form-i.e. if you want to live by yourself that's okay too. Below is more on the representative style.
This can sometimes be an aversion (or an inversion) of [[Good Republic, Evil Empire|Good Democracy Evil Empire]], and has its roots in a number of philosophical objections to democracy. To avoid [[Flame Bait]], no [[Real Life]] examples, please.
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A type of [[Family-Unfriendly Aesop]]. See also [[Hobbes Was Right]] and [[Disaster Democracy]]. For a similarly critical version which still takes democracy's side, see [[Democracy Is Flawed]].
{{noreallife|we don't need the [[Flame War]]s.}}
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== Multiple Media ==
* ''[[Star Wars]]'' provides numerous examples:
** Whether it was intentionally a jab at democracy or not (probably unintentional), the ''[[Star Wars]]'' prequels depict the Republic as "an ineffectual form of government highly prone to corruption, demagoguery and takeovers by radicals". (Which is a fairly accurate summation of the overall plot of Episodes I-III, come to think of it.) You have to give it some credit for lasting 25,000 years. During the Valorum administration, the Republic was not so much a democracy as the UN in space. Then Palpatine gave it an army.
** To be fair, its implied that the Sith had been secretly corrupting and sabotaging it for at least the previous millennium, and they were responsible for numerous wars and catastrophes prior to that which, though they all failed, were all largely aimed at subjugating the Republic, if not outright destroying it and everyone therein. Palpatine himself engineered quite a lot of it as well.
** On the other hand, it is depicted as being saved by tantamount to Greek-demigods-with-[[Laser Sword
* Pretty much every single work produced by a [[Those Wacky Nazis|Nazi German]], [[Fascist Italy|Italian fascist]], [[Taiwan|Pre-1980s KMT]], [[Tsarist Russia|Czarist]], [[Imperial Japan|Japanese Imperialist]], Pre-1970s Spaniard, Islamist, or monarchist ever.
** The Soviet Union is omitted from the above list, as the government has gone on record stating that the USSR had [[People's Republic of Tyranny|a true democracy.]] In Communist China, Mao defined the political system as a "People's Democratic Dictatorship." North Korea is officially called the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea,", East Germany was the "German Democratic Republic," and so on. You may notice a trend here. Communists basically never said that Democracy is Bad. They did the opposite, and tried to [[People's Republic of Tyranny|sound more democratic than thou.]]
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== [[Comic Books]] ==
* The DC comics character Anarky is, well, [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|a teen anarchist]] with strong views on how democracy has failed and should be overthrown.
* [[Aquaman]] seems to hammer this point home with the Atlantean people, [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?|though it's hard to even call them people]] given every [[Tyrant Takes the Helm|dirtbag leader]] they support over a kind king like Arthur.
* ''[[Transmetropolitan]]'':
{{quote|'''Spider Jerusalem:''' You want to know about voting. I'm here to tell you about voting. Imagine you're locked in a huge underground nightclub filled with sinners, whores, freaks, and unnameable things that rape pit bulls for fun. And you ain't allowed out until you all vote on what you're going to do tonight. YOU like to put your feet up and watch television. THEY like to have sex with normal people using knives, guns, and brand-new sexual organs that you did not know existed. So you vote for television, and everyone else, as far as the eye can see, votes to fuck you with switchblades. That's voting. You're welcome.}}
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** ''[[Starship Troopers (novel)|Starship Troopers]]'' famously restricts the rights to vote and run for office to veterans, as they have some idea of social responsibility. Though unlike in the movie this is in no way portrayed as fascism.
** In ''[[Time Enough for Love]]'' Lazarus Long states that he set up Secundus as a "constitutional dictatorship" where the ruling class has some say in government and the common folk, "bless their flabby black hearts", get none. But he's a little surprised that the government has persisted for nearly two thousand years, he expected it to collapse in a century or two.
** In ''[[Glory Road]]'', the Empire of the Forty Universes is governed (to the extent that it ''can'' be governed) by a technological autocracy, and its citizens seem to consider democracy a simple-minded fad in governance. Unlike other Heinlein heroes, though, Oscar Gordon remains devoted to democratic ideals even in the face of those who claim to have evidence that it just doesn't work.
* Even ''[[Discworld]]'' has the occasional stab at committees and one off-hand joke about a species of Republican Bees, who spend most of their time in the hive, voting for more honey. Really, Pratchett seems to prefer the idea of Philosopher Kings. Ephebian 'democracy' (it's a country in Discworld) is referenced on occasion, and criticized for its ironic prenclusion of women, poor people, idiots, people who weren't our kind of people, et cetera. Ephebe is basically a humorous version of Athens at its height, and is a fairly accurate description. Athenians invented Democracy, or rule by the '''citizens'''. What modern people forget is that in Athens, the citizens were a minority of the total population. In ''[[
{{quote|''Philosophers didn't listen to each other, and didn't stick to the point. This was probably mocracy in action.''}}
** Then there's benevolent tyrant of Ankh-Morpork, Lord Vetinari, who considers his job much more difficult than any elected head of state's: after all, ''they'' can always tell the public that it's their fault for voting for them.
** Sam Vimes, cynical bastard that he is, notes in "[[
{{quote|[Vimes] had been rather interested in the idea that everyone had a vote until he found out that while he, Vimes, would have a vote, there was no way in the rules that anyone could prevent Nobby Nobbs from having one as well. Vimes could see the flaw there straight away. }}
** This is probably because his ancestor "Old Stoneface" Vimes (an [[Expy]] of Oliver Cromwell) had a bad experience with it:
{{quote|"He introduced democracy to the city, and the people voted against it." }}
* The Amazon review for the ''[[Sword of Truth]]'' book "Soul of the Fire" notes much fantasy has this trope implicitly, and that that book makes it very very explicit.
* [[Tom Holt]]'s ''A Song For Nero'' features an allegorical aside in which a city-state tries to create the "perfect" system of government, by combining the best features of Athenian democracy (everyone gets a say) and oligarchy (rule by an elite). One suggestion is essentially modern democracy (you vote for the leaders, and then they're in total control for a certain period), which is derided as combining the ''worst'' elements of both. (Namely, that oligarchic elites spend all their time fighting each other for status, and leaders who are reliant on the will of the people give them what they want, not what they need.)
* It can start looking like this in [[H. Beam Piper]]'s ''Space Viking'', as we watch the democracy of Marduk collapse under the influence of the Hitler-esque politician Zaspar Makann (the main character actually researches Hitler to figure out what Makann is going to do next), but the eventual [[Aesop]] is actually that it just has a few bugs that need to be worked out.
** In the short story "Oomphel in the Sky," set about eight centuries before ''Space Viking'', a general is trying to deal with an impending natural disaster. The viewpoint character points out sardonically that he's being undemocratic about it, because he "knows what has to be done and how to do it, and he's going right ahead and doing it, without ... giving everybody a fair and equal chance to foul things up for him."
* In ''[[Mistborn]]'', after {{spoiler|the Final Empire is overthrown}}, the heroes form a constitutional monarchy to administer the city. Ultimately, the elected parliament promptly votes them out of office and sides with their enemies. [[What an Idiot!|In retrospect, Elend shouldn't have written that clause into his constitution.]] In the end, {{spoiler|he is forced to dissolve the government and declare himself emperor in order to save what's left of humanity}}.
* In an old story (probably pre-[[French Revolution]]) someone (probably a nobleman or such) tells a group of people who demand democracy a fable. Content: The animals set up a democracy. Then, the humans attacked. A part of the animals wanted to fight a war (like [[Panthera Awesome|the lion, the tiger]], [[Big Badass Bird of Prey|the eagle]], [[Everything's Worse with Bears|the bear]], [[Big Badass Wolf|the wolf]], and [[Cool Horse|the horse]]) but the great majority was too afraid and voted against it, thus there wasn't a war, the humans won easily and killed many animals. Yep, not only
* [[Rudyard Kipling]]'s "As Easy as ABC" has the people of mid-21st-century Chicago outraged by a group that wants to institute democracy. They regard this as an invasion of privacy, since it means people who may be total strangers to you are <shudder> ''voting'' on, among other things, how you go about your life. A sinister example of how this can be abused is a statue portraying a black man evidently being lynched, with the sarcastic inscription, "To the Eternal Memory of the Justice of the People."
* In the third ''[[Temeraire]]'' novel a character converses with Captain Laurence regarding Napoleon. The character is half British but a virtual outcast due to his mixed race status, and reflects that in some ways Napoleon as a tyrant might be less of a problem than the British System, as a single tyrant can be removed, whereas three hundred scheming MPs could hold absolute control (granted this was hardly a time of a fair Parliamentary system either, but the principle remains). Laurence is not amused, though when witnessing some of Napoleon's great building projects in the heart of Paris he thinks it unfortunate that such beneficial, but disruptive and arbitrary, work could only really be attempted by a tyrant unilaterally making the decision.
* ''[[Honor Harrington]]'' takes this all kinds of different directions. On one hand, the protagonists come from a representative democracy and are fighting an oligarchic dictatorship. On the other hand, half of the books is devoted to the heroes being hamstrung by political machinations while the monarch is shown to be correct and yet unable to do anything in the face of opposition of the masses. [[Zig-Zagging Trope|But then again]], the political machinations stem from [[Aristocrats Are Evil|corrupt and complacent nobles]].
** This achieves further granularity among different powers in the setting. The People's Republic of Haven, for example, had decades of ostensibly democratic rule, but the rulers were so interested in placating their electorate to stay in power that they had to increase the governmental dole to unsustainable levels, forcing them to resort to conquest, and deliberately kept the people dumb to more easily manipulate their votes. On the other hand, the Andermani Empire operates on a strict basis of [[Realpolitik]], and is distrustful of democracies, believing them too unpredictable and prone to wild shifts in policies between administrations. Then there's the Solarian League, which is technically a democracy but the legislative process is so slow and convoluted that non-elected senior members of the bureaucracy have been running the place to suit themselves for centuries without the legislature noticing, often in ways that blatantly violate the official constitution.
* Implied in [[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy/So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish|So Long And Thanks For All The Fish]]: "On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people, if they didn't vote for a lizard, the wrong lizard might get in." More precisely, a criticism of the "first-past-the-post" method of electing representatives, vs. some proportional representation (explained [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSUKMa1cYHk here] by John Cleese, whom Adams admired).
* In [[Saki (author)|Saki]]'s short story ''The Comments of Moung Ka'', the titular sage notes that Britain is what is called a democracy. When he is asked what a democracy is, he describes it (paraphrased) as government by the people, for the people. His proteges express disbelief that any British laws exemplify this. {{spoiler|You weren't paying attention. He said that Britain is '''what is called'''' a democracy.}}
* In L. Jagi Lamplighter's ''[[Prospero's Daughter|Prospero In Hell]]'', Ulysses objects to democracy because it's bound to lead to [[Bread and Circuses]].
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== Math ==
* [[wikipedia:
** 1. If everyone prefers A over B, then the group prefers A over B, and
** 2. The group's preference between A and B does not change when C is added,
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== [[Video Games]] ==
* Addressed in-story in ''[[Suikoden II]]''. {{spoiler|Jowy}}'s [[Face Heel Turn]] is provoked by observing how the democratic City-States are paralyzed by bickering in the face of crisis. Though the city-states do end up winnging the war.
* Possibly unintentional example in the ''Sonic'' games, but one that gets slowly reversed. The military is notably absent from the 2D games. In ''[[Sonic Adventure]]'', the police are ineffective against Chaos, to say the least. In ''[[Sonic Adventure 2]]'', the government takes Sonic prisoner {{spoiler|and is responsible for the whole mess due to its own double-dealing and distrust}}. In ''[[Shadow the Hedgehog]]'', Shadow has to bail out the democratic United Federation against the aliens; its president is portrayed as somewhat wimpy and ineffectual and its military commander is obsessed with the past to the point of making him unable to cope with the present. Some might read the ending of ''Shadow'' as hinting at reform in the government inspired by {{spoiler|Gerald and Maria Robotnik}}, though.
* There's a pretty blatant case of this in ''[[Dragon Age]] Origins''. The Assembly of Orzammar is utterly useless thanks to the [[Succession Crisis]]. They can't seem to agree on ''anything'', even with the threat of a new Blight on the horizon. The fact that the [[Reasonable Authority Figure]] Harrowmont governs through compromise and negotiation with the Assembly can actually be seen as a weakness {{spoiler|and leads to Orzammar getting worse in the epilogue if he is crowned king}}. On the other hand, {{spoiler|Bhelen reforms Orzammar by pretty much ignoring, then outright dissolving, the Assembly if he is crowned king}}. The Assembly isn't least bit democratic, however. It only represents the powerful noble houses, who all want to get upper hand over everybody else. None of them are interested in the people under them. If they were, they would find more common ground.
** Orzammar's Assembly actually has one member who is completely sick of all the self-serving politics. He disdains both candidates for the throne because he thinks neither of them will serve the interests of the common people. Of course, since he's the only one even remotely interested in democratic ideals, he spends most of his time getting drunk.
** It should also be noted that the Blight is only a bane for the surface-dwellers. For the dwarves, who are constantly under threat from the Darkspawn, the Blight means a reprieve, as most of the Darkspawn head for the surface.
* ''[[Anachronox]]'' has the planet Democratus, who vote on anything and barely ever get anything done. Only when faced with oblivion do they come to a quick agreement, but they still have to vote on it.
* In the [[Adventure Game]] ''[[Ceville]]'', the council election drives the overthrown king to this conclusion: "the one in charge [of a democracy] is just as tyrannical as I was, but they hide it better."
* Occasionally [[Invoked Trope|invoked]] and [[Discussed Trope|discussed]] in ''[[Deus Ex]]''. For example, in the first game [[Player Character|J.C. Denton]] can get into a political discussion with a bartender in a [[Hong Kong]] nightclub. J.C. argues that the checks and balances of a western style government allow democracy to flurish by addressing and pre-empting the potential weaknesses of individuals that it would otherwise suffer. The bartender on the other hand has a pro-authoritarian view, arguing that a government that recognizes the weaknesses of the people involved in it would only encourage those same weaknesses in them, and that a government that makes no allowances for such weaknesses would be more effective. Later, J.C. has a similar conversation with the A.I.s Morpheous and Icarus about the benefits of centralized authority versus distributed democracy.
** In the sequel ''[[Deus Ex: Invisible War|Deus Ex Invisible War]]'', [[Previous Player Character Cameo|J.C.]], having [[Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence|merged with Helios,]] intends to create the world's "first true democracy" by [[Assimilation Plot|forcibly spreading nanomachines to every human on the planet]], and then using Helios' information processing capability to literally keep track of the wishes of every single person, using this information to dictate decisions based on majority in real-time.
* ''[[
* Vault City in ''[[Fallout 2]]'' considered democracy (or indeed, anyone outside their system) to be bad. [[Just the First Citizen|First Citizen Lynette]] refers to the NCR's democratic style as "mob rule".
** Caesar and Mr. House from ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]'' independently think that democracy is bad, and both tell you that all you need for proof is to look out at the wastes. The corruption of the NCR's upper echelons and the obstructive bureaucracy that keeps much from actually getting done ''does not'' help democracy's case either. And neither does [[Secret Test of Character|Vault 11]].
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** And there's what their founder had to say on the [http://www.poisonedminds.com/d/20080306.html subject.]
*** Though the system they do use has at least one major [http://www.poisonedminds.com/d/20080822.html flaw.]
* Played with in ''[[8-Bit Theater
* In ''[[Sandra and Woo]]'' a squirrel, a fox and a raccoon [http://www.sandraandwoo.com/2009/04/16/0051-democracy/ vote on what to have for dinner].
* In ''[[Sinfest]]'', [
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* In ''[[The Simpsons]]'' episode "Bart's Comet", the town was going to be struck by the eponymous comet, and Congress' bill to evacuate the town was voted down thanks to a pornography rider attached to it. Kent Brockman's response? "I've said it before and I'll say it again: democracy simply doesn't work." This line is echoed by Homer in "Much Apu About Nothing", after a proposition is passed that requires all illegal immigrants to be deported.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Index of Exact Trope Titles]]
[[Category:Romanticism Versus Enlightenment]]
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[[Category:Politics Tropes]]
[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]
▲[[Category:Democracy Is Bad]]
[[Category:No Real Life Examples, Please]]
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