While every effort has been made to accurately translate this article from its original Italian version, some nuances in meaning may differ. If you wish to explore the original text, you can find it here: Il paradosso della democrazia.

Democracy is a beautiful characteristic to find in a nation, even if, in all honesty, it is an inefficient political system at the very least. Indeed, granting an equal opportunity for all citizens to freely express their opinions through the ballot box has slowly led to a radical transformation of the democratic system itself. While this phenomenal feature once allowed great leaders to rise to power and breathe new life into the country, the vote now elevates simpletons and small-minded men. These individuals secure high levels of popular consensus by peddling easy solutions to overly complex problems, essentially wrapping up their own interests without ever giving concrete thought to the nation. Even when they do think of the country, they do so solely through the lens of future campaigns, burdened by the constant anxiety and pressure of needing to secure reelection in the next cycle. It is obvious that a system like this cannot function in the long run; in fact, it should be halted as soon as possible and reversed to its previous stage. Yet, such a reversal is impossible.

All of this gives considerable pause for thought. As much as one may love freedom of expression through political voting, it is a paradox that in regimes that are democratic in name only, or even outright dictatorial, heads of government carry out well-defined political agendas with clear, long-term plans. They can afford to do so, after all, since they face no concrete opposition and harbor no doubt about their reelection. Conversely, in countries like ours, where the government in power changes every other day, the political leadership is trapped by the resulting instability and uncertainty. They are forced to constantly devise new strategies, ideas, and slogans to feed the public simply to maintain popular consensus and win the next election, which is perennially just around the corner. Consequently, deep problems are met with simplistic and temporary fixes that relieve the current administration of responsibility, postponing a real solution for whoever might succeed them. After all, a serious response to the issues plaguing the country would require a far-sighted vision, which in this kind of environment would only risk handing the adversary raw material for their own crude propaganda. One must therefore rely on quick, painless, and fast solutions that are easy to explain and publicize, ensuring that even the most ordinary citizen can appreciate them and show gratitude. This is populism, and it is how a country dies.

Understanding how we arrived at this point is no simple task, but the purpose of this article is, at the very least, to try. To begin with the basics, the oldest and most traditional parties, enriched by years of accumulated public resources and power, have almost completely lost their grip on reality. This has left citizens confused and has spread a disastrous sense of non-representation, driving them to vote for the lesser of two evils. Furthermore, the electoral system has proven completely incapable of aggregating individual preferences. This failure has caused a proliferation of minor parties, ultimately resulting in fragile, incoherent coalitions that have completely paralyzed and continue to paralyze the country. Meanwhile, this general paralysis has strengthened the unyielding, anti-democratic, xenophobic, and sovereignist nationalist faction, which uses populist propaganda to grow its support amid the gridlock. Populism, by offering simplistic answers to complex management issues, undermines and destroys any meaningful form of political debate. It leaves adversaries unable to present electorally appealing proposals without lapsing into populism themselves, while simultaneously echoing repressed desires for a strongman to save the country from itself.

Everyone knows that the future of a nation lies in its youth and in successive generations, yet democracy does not share this outlook. Democracy is subject to dynamics that are anything but favorable to the young. One need only consider that the minimum voting age is eighteen while the minimum age to be elected to parliament is twenty-five, without even factoring in the necessary years of political apprenticeship. By electing aging minds, the system has poorly managed the evolution of social paradigms. As a result, despite the wealth of nations and the absence of military conflicts, we find ourselves with an exceptionally high level of discontent among the youth, driven primarily by the fear of losing their jobs and their identity. This anxiety is aggravated, naturally, by globalization and technological change. This widespread discontent is further intensified by social fractures that divide the population into two macro-classes. The first consists of those who are remunerated despite not generating resources, leaving them shielded from radical changes; a prime example of this was state employees during the pandemic lockdowns. The second class is composed of those who bear the full brunt of market demands, shifts, and fluctuations. Politicians, who are elected nationally yet claim to solve issues tied to global dynamics, certainly do not improve the situation. Instead, they worsen it terribly, spreading an already present public skepticism regarding politics and its capacity to deliver results. In this desperate climate, people look abroad, hoping to find a desperate consolation in the fact that other states face the same issues, but this is a false comfort. Oligarchic or dictatorial countries appear decidedly more efficient, modern, and capable of keeping pace with the times. One only has to look at China, which, through censorship and the suppression of dissent, sensibly limits citizen autonomy and succeeds in resolving issues that the West deems insurmountable. A simple example is the extension of its pension system to two hundred and forty million citizens living in the country’s rural areas.

Skepticism toward democracy grows even further when we observe that most authoritarian regimes are, at least on paper, legitimized by democratic dynamics. It matters little that the results are known long before the ballots are cast. For instance, the new constitution in Russia began to be sold officially even before it was voted on via referendum, exposing the purely superficial role of the vote. Nor does it matter if the election results in a plebiscite, or if expressions of dissent exist formally but are repressed in practice. None of this matters because it is hidden from view; what people see is a functioning country, whereas ours is not.

Yet, when democratic systems were just beginning to spread across the world, the situation was very different. Many mistakes were made, but some are far more serious than others. First and foremost, democracy has proven to be short-sighted and incapable of selecting virtuous, visionary statesmen. By sacrificing the future for immediate fixes and elevating incompetent amateurs to power, who often embark on their climb not out of an interest in the country but for the wealth and prestige that follow high-level managerial positions, it has spread a terrible skepticism toward its own utility. Furthermore, by failing to punish and instead rewarding reelection to those who base their entire platforms on unachievable promises, it has almost entirely sidelined the segment of the population dissatisfied with the current climate. Left with no alternative, these people are forced to gather in marginal, minority spaces devoid of any political weight. Moreover, as mentioned earlier, such brief political cycles make it objectively impossible to give concrete thought to serious, comprehensive structural plans to solve the issues plaguing the country, such as a school system stuck in the nineteenth century or a pension system on the verge of collapse. All of this is without even touching upon cronyism, lobbying, corporate influence, and vote-buying, which entirely destroy whatever minimal credibility this political regime might still appear to have.

Nevertheless, for the time being, democracy remains the best political regime a country can have, or at least it is certainly superior to a dictatorship or an oligarchy. At a minimum, it guarantees a certain degree of military security, while offering greater freedom, opportunities, and wealth for future generations. However, these results do not come easily. Democracy as we currently know it is a fragile system prone to failure. Therefore, without necessarily proposing authoritarian models, we must reform it or rewrite its rules to solve the problems we have discussed. We need a serious, highly competent, and far-sighted political class that knows how to reconcile a democratic regime with the grand challenges of globalization and technological progress. We need visionary politicians and statesmen capable of reimagining it entirely, while paying extreme attention to the growing influence of various lobbies and the public’s deep disdain for politics. After all, as Hungary demonstrated once again in March, democracy dies precisely through the free exercise of universal suffrage, which can bring absolutely inadequate governments to power that destroy the democratic system from within through mediocre, sovereignist agendas.

The competence and consistency of elected rulers, traits that are now rare among political candidates, must return to being absolute prerequisites for the electorate. At the same time, the voting public must realize that their ballots elect parliamentary representatives. They should not vote with the same casual, indifferent mindset used to eliminate contestants from reality television shows. Indeed, the right to vote does not guarantee the ability to use it wisely. On the contrary, most voting citizens are unable to recognize the best candidate or the best political program, whether due to a lack of specialized knowledge, particularly in economics and law, or a lack of interest in studying current events. This is the sad reality.

This does not imply a need to restrict voting only to those capable of using it, which would simply lead back to a non-democratic, sophocratic-style regime. Rather, it highlights the need to cultivate a more aware electorate through an improved school system, a more engaging public debate, a deeper general cultural education, and the requirement of a minimum level of education for suffrage, as already occurs in other countries. Naturally, the candidates themselves must also be virtuous, meaning they must be competent and genuinely capable of managing national issues with a long-term perspective. Above all, they must be superior by merit to any other potential candidates. Therefore, just as suffrage should be refined, eligibility for office should be filtered as well, weeding out individuals from the political class who fall below a set educational standard or who have proven incapable of managing institutional functions. In essence, meritocracy, which is practically nonexistent today, must be integrated into the democratic regime. This would favor those who have proven themselves to be excellent rulers through ability and experience, or, if they have never held office, those who represent a promising outlook for the future and stability of the nation.

Otherwise, we are right back where we started, and we will never move past this paralysis.