THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE... SOMEWHERE
Democracy in the US feels increasingly precarious. But what are the alternatives?
Mary L is a socio-cultural anthropologist and mental health therapist, so she has both optimism and curiosity in abundance, and she loves to talk!
In this podcast we try to keep the despair at bay by looking for alternatives to the crumbling democracy in the US elsewhere. In each episode Mary interviews two ordinary voters from the same country about how it all works where they are from.
Do they trust their voting machines? Do they feel like politicians actually listen to them? Does anyone really know how their electoral system really works?
Let's find out!
Why now?
Honestly, it's easy to despair about the state of democracy in the US these days. Ever since Trump was elected in 2016 it feels like we are slipping further into authoritarianism.
The attempted coup on January 6th 2021 seemed to confirm something many of us have long known: the US is not exceptional. Its democratic system is just as vulnerable to direct attack or indirect undermining as anywhere else.
Rather than despair, I decided to think about this as an opportunity. If we are going to re-build US democracy, let's aim to make it better.
After all, it was originally designed to accommodate slavery. Surely we can do better than that.
It can feel intimidating to rebuild a constitution, a system of voting, and a way of governing a nation from scratch. But luckily we don't have to! We can learn from other countries.