Tom Syverson

Every year, pop awards season resurrects the paradox of democracy. We take democracy for granted but turn technical and elitist when people vote the wrong way. Democracy rules until our candidate loses, at which point it becomes a flawed system that cedes too much power to an ignorant and irresponsible electorate. To varying degrees, we’re all secretly haunted by the unfortunate idea that stupid people should not be allowed to vote—and neither should people who are just plain wrong, either.

In highly polarized moments, we tend to recycle the same words over and over again rather than have original thoughts. Phrases like “Make America Great Again” and terms like “alt-right” are representative of hand-me-down political terminology that serves no discursive purpose. But it’s not that we lack ideas to voice: It’s that we’ve gotten lazy about voicing them.