# "Who is to blame when democracy implodes? — the voters or the pied pipers?"

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-to-blame-when-democracy-implodes-the-voters-or-the-pied-pipers/758625>\
**Category:** Politics & Elections\
**Created:** [June 28, 2016, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-to-blame-when-democracy-implodes-the-voters-or-the-pied-pipers/758625 "2016-06-28T14:03:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 3

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**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\
**Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-to-blame-when-democracy-implodes-the-voters-or-the-pied-pipers/758625/3 "2016-06-28T14:46:00Z")

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As  
[quoted]  
([https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lessons-to-learn-from-the-brexit/2016/06/26/2642481e-3a4b-11e6-8f7c-d4c723a2becb\_story.html](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lessons-to-learn-from-the-brexit/2016/06/26/2642481e-3a4b-11e6-8f7c-d4c723a2becb_story.html)) in Carpenter’s [commentary](http://www.pmcarpenter.com/2016/06/the-brits-are-out-but-probably-back-in.html):

> [@E.J. Dionne in The Washington Post](#):
>
> “Don’t trash democracy or the voters. Where complicated choices are involved — and Brexit defines complexity — leaders in representative democracies need the guts to make hard calls and submit themselves to voters afterward. They should not use referendums purely to evade responsibility.”

I’ve heard a similar point made by numerous commentators in recent days, as I discussed [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19439099&postcount=264) earlier today:

> [@UK EU In/Out referendum-:Polling day thread.](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-eu-in-out-referendum-polling-day-thread/758125/264):
>
> …In any event, holding the referendum the way they did was simply breathtaking in its stupidity on the part of the PM and his government.
> 
> I heard a political scientist talking about this on NPR yesterday. He stated that it was lunacy to set up a situation where 43 years of treaties and trade agreements could be reversed by a simple majority vote in a glorified opinion poll by the general public. The general public simply does not have the background or the full picture to make an intelligent decision.
> 
> This is why true direct democracy (as opposed to representative democracy) is a recipe for chaos. Even the ancient Athenians realized this, which is why they set up a balance between the Assembly (where direct democracy was exercised) and other governmental institutions.
> 
> In a representative democracy, the people elect leaders who are expected to make good decisions, and who are then responsible for the consequences of those decisions. If you hand a major decision over to the people, especially one that basically boils down to maintaining or rejecting the status quo, some people will vote to make a change simply as a protest vote – even if what they are protesting has nothing to do with what is actually being voted on.
> 
> The whole situation was a recipe for disaster from the start, and should have been better thought out from the beginning.
> 
> If it was decided that a referendum was necessary for political reasons, at a minimum a high bar should have been set up from the start, which should have included a supermajority requirement for any change to the status quo.

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