You’re missing a crucial part of that process I think. Milquetoast candidates can cause voter apathy, yes. It’s the apathy that helps fascism.
The death of democracy also helps fascism, and it’s widely agreed upon that there is no democracy without freedom of expression.
It should follow then, that if someone were to suppress freedom of expression, then they are contributing to the end of democracy, no matter what ends they’re trying to meet. That is to say, the ends don’t justify the means. If someone contributes to the end of democracy while trying to fight someone that they see as the villain of democracy, then it’s still fair to say they contributed to the end of democracy, no matter how noble you think the goal.
So, at the moment, I would say the biggest threat to democracy would be if a federal administration began working with corporations and social media to enact censorship - to destroy freedom of expression.
- Two federal courts ruled that the Biden Administration unduly influenced social media moderation during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The Department of Justice identified at least 45 federal officials who communicated with social media companies about misinformation.
- The Post’s exposé on Hunter Biden’s laptop was suppressed by Facebook and Twitter after the FBI warned Facebook to watch out for a “dump” of Russian disinformation, which bore an uncanny resemblance to the stories.
Regardless of who Biden’s enemy is, whether you think what these people were saying was unpalatable, or even if it’s your opinion that they’re dangerous, they didn’t break the law with their speech and therefor the government had no right to censor.
If you claim to be for democracy and freedom of expression, then any claim of defence that these should be exceptions would simply be hypocritical, and a violation of your democratic principles. This is getting more and more common, and we can’t have democracy if it’s common for people to violate their democratic principles.
I repeat: we can’t have democracy if it’s common for people to violate their democratic principles.
