History Main / DemocracyIsFlawed

* in ''Literature/TheBookOfMormon'', when King Mosiah abdicates in favor of a democracy, he notes that while "the voice of the people" will usually work, there may come a day when majority vote will support wickedness. He also notes that when a king is righteous, a monarchy is preferable; democracy exists to avoid the inevitable wicked kings that lead the people into wickedness.

* A variant occurs in the ''TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade'' Brujah clanbook, in which the narrator admits that, while the Camarilla is flawed and there are many things that the Brujah don't like about it, its still the best idea that vampires have come up with so far and should be maintained until something better is created.
* In ''Tabletopgame/BattleTech'', the Free Worlds League is the closest thing to a democracy in the FeudalFuture. Nobility does not necessarily imply planetary lordship, and there is a strong planetary democratic tradition. However, prevalent sectionalism ensures that the FWL is the most unstable state, having succumbed to repeated civil wars [[EnemyCivilWar that its neighbors are keen to exploit]]. Initially, the Captain-General was a temporarily military posting, but during [[ForeverWar 300 years of total war]] it became an executive hereditary position occupied by House Marik, and slowly became more powerful than the elected parliament.

* 'WebVideo/TwitchPlaysPokemon'': Democracy Mode was originally met with contempt and scorn. The Voices learned to live with it after a week, decrying it as slow but having formed a common enemy in the form of [[HeroKiller The PC]]. On the 16th day, with the end so close at hand and the nearest checkpoint [[CheckpointStarvation a full three hours away]], the Anarchists begrudgingly agreed to let Democracy go off during the boulder-pushing puzzles.

* ''Film/{{Sunshine}}''. When the Icarus II crew is discussing the option of diverting the mission to intercept the Icarus I so they can retrieve the payload and possibly save their crew if they are still alive, Mace wants to put it up to a vote. Searle points out that they are not a democracy, but a group of astronauts and scientists on a mission to save mankind. Therefore they shouldn't arbitrarily make their decision by popular concensus but to make the most informed decision possible, made by the person best qualified to understand the theory and complexities of the payload delivery, physicist Capa.

* ''Literature/{{Victoria}}'' showcases the full spectrum of democracies and their strengths and weaknesses. In the backstory, the failing representative democracy of the United States had good intentions originally, but became deadlocked and corrupt when the legislators and bureaucratic leviathans of the federal government grew too distant from the people and were bribed by the special interests. The main story line features the titular Victoria, a direct democracy building on the Articles of Confederation; it has less corruption and unelected bureaucracies, but is correspondingly more vulnerable to populist demagogy, racism and the influence of political generals. And then, of course, there is their enemy: the Democratic Republic of Azania, a LadyLand that starts out as a democracy but soon is one [[PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny in name only]], after fascists take over its elected assembly.

* ''Series/TheOrville'': "[[Recap/TheOrvilleS1E07MajorityRule Majority Rule]]" satirizes a direct e-democracy (by way of upvotes and downvotes on social media) via a planet with such a form of government which is very similar to a modern day Earth. [=LaMarr=] is filmed doing something unbelievably stupid and rude but not actually damaging, and is [[DisproportionateRetribution sentenced to a lobotomy]] unless he can manage to throw himself on the public's mercy such that he doesn't score 10 million downvotes. It's also later revealed that ''everything'' on the planet runs on this kind of system, including things that should be instead based on concrete facts for everyone's benefit, such as what medicines cure what diseases and what kinds of foods are good for you.

** ''Fanfic/ThePalaververse'': Bullwalda (read: "King") Greenhorn of Bovaland is used to a feudal system of government and consequently has a very low opinion of democracy. It doesn't win him much popularity with the democratically-elected Prime Minister Burro of Asinia.
--->'''Greenhorn:''' Republicanism. A barbarous debacle. (To Burro) No offense.\\
'''Burro Delver:''' Some taken.

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* It's not clear if this was an intentional Aesop, but a great many of the Rag-Tag Fleet's problems in ''{{Series/Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'' could have been avoided if President Roslin would favour expert advice over public opinion. Roslin becoming president is even a potential example of this trope: before the Cylon attack she was a mid-ranking member of the Department of Education. She became president simply because she was the highest ranking (read only) member of the civilian government left alive, so the line of succession fell to her despite her obvious lack of qualification.
* ''Series/DoomPatrol'': Crazy Jane has sixty four different personas living inside her head, in a mental construct called The Underground. They tend to hold votes to decide things like what they should do in various situations. Unfortunately, the reason Jane has so many personas is because she developed Dissociative Personality Disorder as a result of [[RapeAsBackstory sexual abuse she suffered as a child]]. Consequently, her personas range from "quirky" to "absolutely dysfunctional" in personality and on top of that most of them besides Jane stay in the Underground either full-time or most of the time and have little if any idea of how to interact with the real world. As a result, any time they vote to override Jane (who's one of the saner personas and who spends most of her time fronting and therefore does understand the real world), they tend to mess things up badly. Examples include putting Karen (a telepath who's obsessed with 90s sitcoms and tries to MindRape every handsome man she meets into falling in love with her), The Hangman's Daughter (who doesn't want to do anything but paint and doesn't even understand things like eating or sleeping), or Baby Doll (a telekinetic with the [[ItsAllAboutMe emotional maturity of a young child]]) in charge.

* ''Webcomic/OzzieAndMillie'': In the middle of an arc parodying election politics where Llewelyn ran for President on a lark and nearly won despite deliberately having the most absurd platform he could think of in the hopes of losing (including having a stack of pancakes as a running mate, promising to outlaw bread, and proposing to sell Arizona and New Mexico back to Mexico and using the money to buy British Columbia), the cast had a special comic on election day proper stating that democracy depends on an ''informed'' electorate, and as such, it is the civic duty of most Americans, who don't pay attention to politics outside of election season and vote on impulse with no real understanding of the issues, to '''not''' vote.

* The Komi Republic in ''VideoGame/TheNewOrderLastDaysOfEurope'' is a young DisasterDemocracy established in former Soviet Russia after the nation's defeat at the hands of Nazi Germany in World War II. Syktyvkar boasts a constitution and multi-party democracy but the true nature of the democratic scene is a nightmarishly chaotic Pandora's Box of extremist ideologies as the country welcomes exiles who were kicked out of ''everywhere else''. Komi can result in some of the best unifying forces for Russia (like [[SilkHidingSteel Bukharina's]] [[ChummyCommies left-communist nation]] or [[GoodIsNotDumb a]] [[InternalReformist liberal democracy]]) and one of the absolute ''worst'' ([[spoiler:[[TheCaligula Taboritsky's]] deranged [[DystopiaJustifiesTheMeans Esoteric Nazi Imperial cult]] that [[KeystoneArmy collapses with his death]], causing a [[HereWeGoAgain second, worse Russian Anarchy]]]]).

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* ''LightNovel/HighSchoolProdigiesHaveItEasyEvenInAnotherWorld'': The Republic of Elm needs to decide the issue of whether or not to help Yamato, where voting yes could restart hostilities with the Freyjagard Empire while voting no means betraying their nation's ideals. Both choices have their pros and cons, but the voters on both sides aren't thinking as hard about the long-term consequences as Tsukasa. It's also clear that they still have to rely on Tsukasa to find out how to implement their decision and plan for potential consequences. Worse yet, the pro-war side is being manipulated by a smooth-talking but wicked former noble, showing that it's easy for bad actors to manipulate public opinion. While the corrupt noble is arrested and the two political parties come to a compromise, it's clear that the democratic system would have fallen apart without the Luminaries' interference. That said, Tsukasa believes having the citizens vote over the issue is preferable to them killing each other in a civil war.
* ''Literature/LegendOfTheGalacticHeroes'' spends a lot of time showing that democracy at is best is nowhere near as good as the best that can be done with an iron fist, but it also is unlikely to sink quite as low. The Free Planets Alliance is corrupt to the core, but people can still complain about it without being sent to TheGulag. The Empire, in the meantime, can go from golden age to decadence all on the basis of who's in charge of it, and the rights of its citizens are tied to TheEmperor's whims. However, [[spoiler:Reinhart eventually enshrines said rights with a constitution; but he couldn't have done so without taking supreme power in a coup.]]
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* ''LightNovel/HighSchoolProdigiesHaveItEasyEvenInAnotherWorld'': The Republic of Elm runs into this trope when it comes to the issue of whether or not to help Yamato, where voting yes could restart hostilities with the Freyjagard Empire while voting no means betraying their nation's ideals. Both choices have their pros and cons, but the voters on both sides aren't thinking as hard about the long-term consequences as Tsukasa. It's also clear that they still have to rely on Tsukasa to find out how to implement their decision and plan for potential consequences. Worse yet, the pro-war side is being manipulated by a smooth-talking but wicked former noble, showing that it's easy for bad actors to manipulate public opinion. While the corrupt noble is arrested and the two political parties come to a compromise, it's clear that the democratic system would have fallen apart without the Luminaries' interference. That said, Tsukasa believes having the citizens vote over the issue is preferable to them killing each other in a civil war.
* ''Literature/LegendOfTheGalacticHeroes'' spends a lot of time showing that democracy at is best is nowhere near as good as the best that can be done with an iron fist, but it also is unlikely to sink quite as low. The Free Planets Alliance is corrupt to the core, but people can still complain about it without being sent to TheGulag. The Empire, in the meantime, can go from golden age to decadence all on the basis of who's in charge of it, and the rights of its citizens are tied to TheEmperor's whims. [[spoiler:Reinhart eventually enshrines said rights with a constitution, but he couldn't have done so without taking supreme power in a coup.]]

* When Papa Smurf is away, ''Comicbook/TheSmurfs'' argue who should be the new leader. In the first round of voting, everyone votes for himself. The second round ends with a Smurf elected (by making empty promises) who installs a monarchy with himself as the king.

* ''ComicBook/{{Democracy}}'' is also this, along with DemocracyIsBad. Cleisthenes' reforms improved the life of many citizens and felt strong and ready to protect their city from the Persian attack. Women and slaves would still not have a vote though]…
* At the end of the ''ComicBook/{{Earth X}}'' trilogy, Mar-Vell has to warn Reed Richards not to let Steve Rogers turn the Paradise into a democracy, because heaven has to be better than the lowest common denominator of a popular vote.

-->'''Greenhorn:''' Republicanism. A barbarous debacle. (To Burro) No offense.\\

* ''Fanfic/WhiteSheepRWBY'': General Ironwood has many problems with the Atlas Council, and Jaune finds it impossible to get them to capitulate to his extremely minor, perfectly reasonable demands. Despite Ironwood's complaints, he is quick to insist that democracy is far better than the alternative. The big problem is that Jaune has basically forced them into the worst possible situation for a democratic council: Making a snap decision, with minimal information, and what information they do have runs counter to everything the people have believed for centuries. Due to the myth of Atlas' invincibility, if the politicians give Jaune what he wants they will all immediately be impeached and the country will be thrown into chaos. [[spoiler:Jaune and Ironwood reach a compromise by faking a war, which puts the country under martial law and leaves Ironwood as the sole person with any authority. The plan is to fight for a few weeks and then "force" Jaune to "accept" peace, ignoring the fact that this is what he wanted all along]].

* ''Franchise/StarWars'': In the prequel trilogy, then-Senator Palpatine uses the political mire of the Galactic Senate to ignite his scheme of overthrowing the Jedi and Senate to establish a Sith Empire. In [[Franchise/StarWarsLegends the Expanded Universe]], it's implied that a large amount of the corruption in the Senate for the millenium was due to the Sith. All Palpatine did was fulfill it.
** This is a running theme through ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends''. No one's debating the Republic doesn't have many, ''many'' flaws. However, they stood for almost ''thirty thousand years'' against many iterations of the Sith Empire. The Empire in all but the most recent form ([[ComicBook/StarWarsLegacy that is, under the rule of the Fel family]]) is a brutal, racist, sexist, corrupt and self-destructive trash heap with crumbling or non-existent infrastructure, a house of cards economy built on eternal war and slave labor, wastes the talents of ''most'' species (remember: this is a galaxy with at least ''twenty million'' sentient species) by making sure anyone who isn't Human (or Sith species, when they were still around) is sent to a slave pit (if they're not Force Sensitive). Force Sensitives are conscripted to the Sith to be [[TrainingFromHell trained]], target practice, and frequently both. KlingonPromotion is standard operating procedure, as is ChronicBackstabbingDisorder (no one can ''trust'' their underlings, as the underlings are just biding their time to stab the boss and take their job and the underlings can't trust the boss not to get them killed just to advance their prospects), and the whole thing is "ruled" by an AxCrazy theocratic cabal of Sith who don't give a bantha's arse about anything but their own (inevitably lethal) power games. The Republic looks like ''Utopia'' compared to that mess.

** Lord Vetinari mentions a town voting to make itself democratic, then immediately voting to no longer pay taxes. Given the general HumansAreBastards ''and'' [[HumansAreMorons Morons]] tendencies on the Disc, the only viable forms of government are monarchies and dictatorships.

---> ''Vimes had once discussed the Ephebian idea of ‘democracy’ with Carrot, and had been rather interested in the idea that everyone had a vote until he found out that while he, Vimes, would have a vote, there was no way in the rules that anyone could prevent Nobby Nobbs from having one as well. Vimes could see the flaw there straight away.''

** In ''[[Fanfic/EquestriaAHistoryRevealed Equestria: A History Revealed]],'' while it started off promising, the Equinus Republic quickly devolved into politicians holding their own private agendas, constant lack of consensus and progress, and pointless bickering in Parliament. This all sets the stage for the rise of Discord.
** In ''Fanfic/SunshineAndFire'', Celestia uses this logic to argue against the parallel universe version of Applejack and her plan to overthrow her own world's version of Celestia (a corrupt, insane tyrant) and install democracy in her place. She specifically focuses on how, in addition to democracy's normal flaws (aka susceptibility to inefficiency, corruption, infighting and mob justice), Applejack wants to install it on a world that has known nothing but tyranny and oppression for a thousand years, and in particular where "the majority" will be drawn from a species that was repressed for those thousand years and which would thusly be eager to oppress those who had power beforehand in turn.

* In ''Webcomic/TheLegendOfGenji'', the monarchical Earth Kingdom has reformed into the democratic Earth Federation. However, the kingdom was plagued throughout its history by problems of corruption and political infighting, which have carried over into the new Federation. Most of the power is concentrated in the hands of the wealthy and the upper classes, resulting in a technical but heavily corrupt democratic system. Issues like expansionist politics, social inequality, and poverty are also still a problem. In addition, fringe cultures like the sandbender tribes are frequently subjected to racism and forced off their lands so the government can harvest their resources.

* In the IDW ''[[ComicBook/TransformersMoreThanMeetsTheEye Transformers]]'' G1 continuity, Optimus Prime eventually renounced Autobot dominance over Cybertron and allowed its citizens to elect a leader. They chose Starscream.
** Starscream has since found himself somewhat beholden to the people he now rules, and the Council of Worlds that includes representatives from various colony worlds. He's unhappy about having to answer to people who have no idea what kind of stresses he's under to actually be a good leader, but surprisingly enough he actually is trying. If only to spite those who think he can't handle it.

** ''Literature/TimeEnoughForLove'':
*** Lazarus Long makes the following comment regarding democracy:
---->''"Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How’s that again? I missed something."''
*** To his credit, he also shows doubts regarding autocracy:
---->''"Autocracy is based on the assumption that one man is wiser than a million men. Let’s play that over again, too. Who decides?"''
* Creator/NiccoloMachiavelli’s ''Literature/DiscoursesOnLivy'' suggests that unrestrained democracy would lead to anarchic chaos, but it was necessary for liberty in balance with aristocracy and monarchy in a true Republic. In contrast to [[Literature/ThePrince his more famous work]] which sidestepped the issue entirely (and was probably meant as satire). It is worth noting that Machiavelli’s ideal form of republic is a notable forerunner of the modern idea of checks and balances in government, and he may be argued to have been VindicatedByHistory, as many of today’s political systems seem to have taken his ideas to heart. For example, the UsefulNotes/AmericanPoliticalSystem can be argued to have elements of monarchy in the presidency, of aristocracy in the court system (originally the Senate), and of democracy in Congress. Meanwhile, the UsefulNotes/BritishPoliticalSystem, at least in theory, has monarchy in the prime minister (and the actual monarch), aristocracy in the House of Lords, and democracy in the House of Commons. Of course, people’s opinions may vary wildly on how truly effective these systems are.

* In LetsPlay/TwitchPlaysPokemon, Democracy Mode was originally met with contempt and scorn. The Mob learned to live with it after a week, decrying it as slow but having formed a common enemy in the form of [[HeroKiller The PC]]. On the 16th day, with the end so close at hand and the nearest checkpoint [[CheckpointStarvation a full three hours away]], the Anarchists begrudgingly agreed to let Democracy go off during the boulder-pushing puzzles.

For now, RealLife examples are permitted, as this is a politically motivated trope and they are helpful. Try to keep it to famous opinions on the matter rather than analysis of the actual systems. [[SelfDemonstratingArticle Failure to be civil]] will result in the Real Life section being nuked. Real Life examples are a privilege, not a right.

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[[folder:Real Life]]
* A common joke when someone is moving slowly is to say he's moving at the speed of government. In UsefulNotes/FascistItaly, Mussolini is said to have made the trains run on time. He didn't, [[note]] But he very nearly made all the international trains that ran ''into and through'' Italy run to a fairly close relationship with the published timetable [[/note]] but the belief reflects this trope, and the perception at the time (i.e. 20s-30s) that choosing democracy over fascism was choosing LibertyOverProsperity, summed up by UsefulNotes/HarryTruman who argued, "Whenever you have an efficient government [[NoDelaysForTheWicked you have a dictatorship]]." As well as UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill:
--> ''"Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."''
** A lot of this has become DatedHistory. Fascism and Nazism appeared to be successful because both came to power in developed nations with republican, democratic, and constitutional monarchical institutions that had done a lot of the heavy lifting trains. Hitler took credit for the Autobahn, but the first was built one year before Hitler's reign, which Hitler [[WrittenByTheWinners downgraded to a highway, so that he then could]] [[BlatantLies "officially"]] build the first one. The first Autobahn (or, Autostrada in the native language) in the world was proposed in 1921 and completed in 1924-1925 in Italy, Mussolini having gained power in 1922.[[note]]There is ''one'' instance where the Mussolini claim was proven true. When the King of Italy surrendered power to the Black Shirts and decided to make Mussolini the prime minister, Mussolini immediately got on a semi-private train at his home (what, you didn't think he was actually leading the army in person, did you?) and demanded that he make it to Rome immediately in order to be there for the transference of power. Which the train managed to do, in almost record time. So we can say that, in the case where it's a personal demand by the dictator itself, the trains can be made to run on time once.[[/note]]
* After UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, the new German state simply kept most of the existing laws but made significant changes in regard to elections and the power of major offices in the new constitution, to prevent the rise of populists in the future. While many aspects of national and state election and lawmaking are now frequently described as undemocratic, it was regarded as a necessary move. In late 2011, the Pirate Party unexpectedly came in fifth in the Berlin state election and fourth in the Saarland, winning seats in both states and are expected to get similar results in North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein. While rightfully described as a populist movement, the Pirate Party of Germany differs from other such parties in Europe by having the increase of democratic participation in Germany as their primary (and some even say only) aim, instead of handing all power to strong leaders who know "what's best" for the country.
* UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution did much to popularize this image and it gave an image of "democracy" as amounting to mob rule orchestrating several large amounts of deaths. Researchers who know the actual history see the Revolution's failures as stemming not from mob rule but poor leadership made by the "leaders" who made things worse by declaring war on the rest of Europe. The third view these days is the democracy of the First French Republic was bad, self-destructive and transient but given the circumstances it operated under, achieved a lot more than it had any right to expect or hope for and that, despite reversals, it codified modern democracy (anti-racism, abolition of slavery, people's right to protest, universal suffrage) and through its military successes, it proved that democracy could rule a large nation and lead it to war and it generated massive shock waves that forced nations across Europe to reform or go the way of UsefulNotes/LouisXVI.
* From UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy[='s=] "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech:
-->"Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect. But we have never had to put [[UsefulNotes/BerlinWall a wall]] up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us."
** And then there's good old first-past-the-post, which operates roughly thus: if there are three large and a multitude of small parties and Party A gets 34% of the vote, Party B gets 33% and the remaining 33% goes to Parties C through K, Party A gets to make all the decisions by itself until the next election, unless Party B or C can herd together enough allies in the smaller parties to form 34% or more of the vote between them. Constitutional monarchies usually give the sovereign the casting vote in this eventuality; the decision-making process elsewhere varies. Either way, the 66% of the population who ''didn't'' vote for the people now running the show are kind of screwed.
** Which is why, by [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law Duverger's law,]] democracies whose elections are determined by first-past-the-post tend towards two-party systems (the United States being the prime example): groups of like-minded voters tend to congregate together into broad coalitions in order to reach that 50%+1 threshold that would guarantee victory. Note that this is not a hard-and-fast rule - countries with parties having strong regionalist platforms tend to break this rule (e.g., the US in the 1860 presidential election, Canada and the UK today).[[note]]This effect is partly because first-past-the-post tends to be abandoned when a genuine multi-party system emerges.[[/note]]
** Canada and the UK have what is sometimes called a two-and-a-half party system. That is, there are two dominant parties that regularly win most or all of the elections, but one or more smaller parties also regularly win a significant number of seats. These parties sometimes [[KingmakerScenario hold the balance of power]] when neither of the two largest parties has a majority.
** To avoid this, some countries opt for a proportional representation system, but this has flaws of its own. Chiefly, small parties are given disproportionate power, since as it's very difficult for any party to get a majority they need their support to form coalitions. This means that small parties that don't represent most citizens' opinions can have a major hand in government decisions, and even control over certain ministries as inducement to support the ruling coalition.
* When there are only two physical choices for a given vote (i.e., "yes" or "no"), simple majority vote generally works fine. But by [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem Arrow's impossibility theorem,]] when there are three or more possible options which each voter personally ranks in order, it's impossible to have a voting system that can convey the sum of each voter's ranking of choices into a "fair" community-wide ranking. Any voting system you design will violate at least one of the following aspects of fairness:
** No one voter gets to pick the whole electorate's preferences without input from others ("Non-dictatorship").
** If every voter individually prefers option A over option B, then the election will always pick A over B ("Monotonicity").
** If every voter previously preferred option X over option Y, then the election will always put X over Y whether or not Z is a pickable choice. ("Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives").
* UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush once commented--jokingly, one sincerely hopes!--that his job would be easier if he were a dictator. Cue the UsefulNotes/ConspiracyTheories. [[UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson LBJ]] also made a statement on what he would do if he were a dictator, and UsefulNotes/HarryTruman also made a comment about dictatorships being more efficient than democracy, as noted above. Even UsefulNotes/BarackObama said, "I've got a pen and I've got a phone - and I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions that move the ball forward." and UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump celebrated Chinese President Xi Jinping abolishing term limits, adding "Maybe we'll give that a shot". In fact, most democratically elected leaders have most likely fantasized that they were dictators at one point or another, if only to [[ObstructiveBureaucrat cut through all of the red tape.]]
* The UsefulNotes/PolishLithuanianCommonwealth was an ElectiveMonarchy that represented a "nation of nobles" where each noble was equal, and had voting powers and deliberative powers in the quasi-parliament, the General Sejm, with each noble having Liberum Veto to unilaterally cancel any policy it dislikes so any decision passed must have a total consensus. This was supposed to act as a check on the power of the King/Grand Duke: if he wanted a law passed, he needed the consent of the Sejm, who would grant or withhold approval through simple majority vote. However, this handicapped the King from having any executive power. If the King wanted to make reforms for the general benefit of the entire realm, he would face backlash from those nobles who perceived that said development would take away influence and importance away from it. This effectively paralyzed the realm. Moreover this system allowed neighboring powers to easily bribe one or two of the nobles. This allowed Russia, Austria and Prussia to start messing in the nation's internal affairs. Likewise, while the Commonwealth and its Sejm had a bigger franchise than UK's Parliament and had 300 members, but on the other hand it was a system coterminous with serfdom, which comprised 80% of the population who had zero rights and no representation. Enlightenment thinkers such as Rousseau and in America, Franklin and Madison, cited the Commonwealth circa 1700s as a system that was both [[MindScrew feudal ''and'' republican]] possessing none of the advantages of either system and the flaws of both, citing the Liberum Veto and foreign influence as part of the justification for a strong executive in America as well as the Emoluments Cause.
* UsefulNotes/{{Indonesia}} puts a high emphasis on how much they love democracy. When it was revealed that Suharto's reign was in fact a facade of dictatorship, and a few incidents proved this, they were pissed, removed Suharto from power, and strove to be as democratic as possible. Happy ending? Nope. Turns out that even the democratic parties were also flawed, Indonesia's advancement has been kind of stagnant and it allows several annoying factions like the Islamic Defenders Front to be very open in how much they think Indonesia should just take the method of Taliban Islam and causing general ruckus everywhere "in the name of God". It says something that despite Suharto's dictatorship and fake propaganda, some people agreed that he did a lot more for Indonesia's advances, to the point of wanting a new Suharto-like leader to rise, just without his questionable traits.
* The Electoral College system in the United States was designed to serve as a check against Democracy. The founders did not want one region to dominate by virtue of most people live there, so they didn't want to use a pure popular vote. The TL;DR version is that the President is determined by winning more smaller, regional popular votes, than the other candidate. Usually, this falls in line with the popular vote, but in 5 occasions, there was a difference between the two numbers. There are theoretical situations where one can become president while winning only 23% of the popular vote. This requires some numbers that are so precise (not to mention a political alliance of several states that traditionally would be laughable) that it's safe to say it could never happen. That said, UsefulNotes/RichardNixon was elected by carrying 49 out of 50 states. Nixon himself was the president who got the closest to abolishing the Electoral College. His administration worked with Congress to propose a constitutional amendment that passed the House with an overwhelming bipartisan majority (339-70) in 1969 but died in the senate. They were about a dozen votes short of getting to the 67 they needed and most of the holdouts were southern segregationist Democrats.
** To scare you even more, that 23% assumes only two candidates. You only need to win the 11 most populous states by 1 vote each, and win by a plurality, not a majority. If you have three or more serious candidates (think 1992 with Clinton, Bush Sr, and Perot), you can do it with even less than 23% in theory.
** It's also worth pointing out that the system originally did not have any popular vote requirement. Instead the members of the Electoral were selected in a manner chosen by the State Legislature and as such were only indirectly elected.
** While the Electoral College was designed to prevent a few small regions with the highest populations from dominating the vote on a federal scale, the idea of one small region eclipsing a lot of less densely populated regions is still an issue on a state-wide scale, as most states determine their votes for the Electoral College on a winner-takes-all basis. This means that any city or region that holds most of the state's population (one example being Chicago for Illinois) can effectively dominate their state's vote even if the rest of the state voted differently than that city, and the less populated parts of the state can be effectively ignored from campaign groups.
** The Electoral College was also designed partially under the idea of there being two candidates, but did not anticipate only two broad political ''parties''. The modern Democrat and Republican parties were founded long after the Constitution was written, and efforts to get a third party (or more) has met with limited success, with only Libertarians getting ANY foothold. In contrast, other countries may have multiple parties but they still tend to whittle it down to a couple of candidates for the deciding vote. If there are five parties candidates may squeak by with 21 percent of an initial voting period to become one of the final two, but the deciding vote is being made by a country that just doesn't like any of the options because their preferred candidate was knocked out of the race.
** A feature of the electoral college that comes from its nature is that it partially obscures or makes irrelevant local differences in turnout or voting eligible population. The number of electors is (indirectly) based on population via being based on each state's congressional delegation (with minimum number of electors per state being 3, thus slightly distorting the weight of small states upward), however, it is ''not'' based on voting eligible or actually voting population. So during slavery three fifths of slaves were counted, during Jim Crowe blacks who could not hope to ever get to vote were counted and during the whole era of no female suffrage, women were counted. It is certain that had slaves not been counted in 1800 and had the election gone exactly the same, Jefferson (the Southern candidate) would have lost and Adams (the Northern candidate) would have won. The repercussions down the ages can only be guessed at, but in a system where the national popular vote counts, a state has an advantage in enfranchising more of its people (e.g. giving women full suffrage) in an electoral college system it will not benefit from that. There is however an - arguably - positive aspect to this feature, as local events that depress or increase turnout have no outsize effect. If a blizzard immobilizes large parts of Alaska and only a few hundred Alaskans vote, Alaska still gets three electoral votes, if the presidential candidate is from Wyoming and thus every Wyomingite goes voting, the state will still only get three electoral votes. In a national popular vote events like these can (and do) influence national electoral results, to the point that a sunny day in parts of the country that traditionally vote for one party can swing the election in a close race.
** There is a loophole which would effectively render the Electoral College completely pointless without having to get rid of it. Currently, most states give all their votes to the candidate who won a plurality in the state, with Nebraska and Maine choosing their electors semi-proportionally. However, this does not have to be the case. The Constitution provides that each state can appoint its electors "in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct", meaning that the state legislatures can choose any method they want to select their electors. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact]] is a growing movement which could take advantage of this technicality to effectively bypass the Electoral College. Once enough states join to control a majority of the electoral votes (270/538), they would all give their votes to the candidate who won the ''national'' popular vote, forcing a victory for that candidate regardless of population distribution.
* The United States Senate has also become increasingly undemocratic in a different way than it was originally. Back in the day, the senate was undemocratic because it was not elected by popular vote but appointed by governors because it was seen as a more highbrow chamber than the House which was elected by the commoners. This function was done away with starting in the 1918 elections. It is now undemocratic because while more people live in the roughly dozen most populated states, there are more sparsely populated states. Back when the constitution was first written the biggest state had 12x the population of the smallest state while today it's 68x. The 50 Democratic senators represent 40 million more people than the 50 Republican senators as of 2021. The Republican caucus in the senate hasn’t represent the majority of Americans since 1996. The problem is only getting worse too. [[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/11/28/by-2040-two-thirds-of-americans-will-be-represented-by-30-percent-of-the-senate/ A study by the University of Virginia]] estimated that by 2040 70% of Americans will live in the fifteen biggest states meaning that 30% of Americans will have 70% of the senators while 70% has 30% of the senators. At the current moment, the make up of the Senate hurts the Democrats but prior to about 2000, it hurt Republicans. This is largely due to the very heavily democratic GI generation having mostly died off and being replaced in the electorate by their more conservative children, the baby boomer generation. Millennials who are Democrats like the [=GIs=] are/were cluster into bigger states in the Sunbelt like California, Georgia, and Texas which dilutes their votes in the senate.
* More generally, the framers of the United States Constitution consciously sought to avoid tyranny of the majority. The very idea of constitutional constraints on the power of the voters or their elected representatives presupposes that democracy is flawed.
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* In ''Webcomic/TheLegendOfGenji'', the monarchical Earth Kingdom has reformed into the democratic Earth Federation. However, the kingdom was plagued throughout its history by problems of corruption and political infighting, which have carried over into the new Federation. Most of the power is also concentrated in the hands of the wealthy and the upper classes, resulting in a technical but heavily corrupt democratic system. Issues like expansionist politics, social inequality, and poverty are still a problem. In addition, fringe cultures like the sandbender tribes are frequently subjected to racism and forced off their lands so the government can harvest their resources.

* ''Fanfic/TheEquestrianCivilServiceSeries'' splits the difference by making Equestria a ''constitutional'' monarchy (or possibly diarchy) that's very similar to the real-life Westminster system, which isn't surprising for a series that owes so much inspiration to ''Series/YesMinister''.