PART 2 | Democracy’s greatest trick is giving people power while building safeguards to stop that power from becoming tyranny.
Democracy relies on a delicate relationship between the people and their government.
In theory, the idea goes a bit like this…
To form government, those seeking power must be chosen by the people at an election. Not all of the people, but enough people in enough places. What matters is the numbers, not who the individual people are.
Power is not given forever. Neither is power absolute. People have, in the words of one former US president, with “wisdom” “provided for the return of [power] to their own hands at very short intervals”.