When Zimbabwe was named Rhodesia, and when it was a white minority regime governed by Ian Smith, William Buckley had Smith on his Firing Line. Smith was candid in expressing his belief that Rhodesian blacks were too stupid to deserve the franchise.
Buckley said, “Democracy is not an intelligence test. It is a means of saying, ‘No’.”
That is the best justification of democracy that I have heard. Elites will always make decisions, but when the decisions turn out badly, the demos, that is to say the electorate, the electorate will say, “No.”
In 1932 the electorate said “No” to the Republicans, because the Republicans seemed supportive of a plutocracy that was blamed for the Great Depression.
Beginning in 1968 the electorate said “No” to the Democrats because the Democrats seemed supportive of black ghetto rioters, criminals, and welfare recipients.
In 2008 the electorate said “No” to an economy most did not benefit from. President Obama had two years to achieve a lower unemployment rate. When he failed, and established a health program most Americans did not want, the voters said “No” to him. If the Republicans seem more intent on destroying the Obama administration than fixing the economy, they will likely hear “No” in 2012.
During the Great Depression democracy lost prestige in Europe and even the United States because the Soviet Union was untouched by the Great Depression, and Germany recovered faster than the democracies. Nevertheless, a democratic Germany, however jingoistic and chauvinistic, would not have made the strategic efforts Adolf Hitler made. The Germans were reluctant to go to war over Poland. They would not have indorsed the invasion of the Soviet Union after losing the Battle of Britain. They certainly would not have declared war on the United States after failing to defeat the Soviets in December 1941.
Bertrand Russell attributed the spread of democracy largely to the fact that since the eighteenth century major wars have usually been won by the side that was more democratic.
