Practical Democracy

Elizabeth Drew's article in Project Syndicate is something for the people of Hong Kong to immediately pause and think about and for us here in Singapore to always bear in mind.

I quote her,

From the outset, America’s founders were aware of the dangers of government by plebiscite. Alexander Hamilton worried about giving power to the people because “they seldom judge or determine right.” Fearing “an excess of democracy,” they interposed institutional buffers between the popular will and government decisions.

The wisdom of that structure imposed by their founding fathers has never been more needful than now against a crazy and erratic demagogue like Donald Trump.

So this is being pragmatic about Democracy from of all people the overly zealous Americans themselves.