Politics as a spectator sport  - Participate in democracy or suffer

One of the real threats to the stability and prosperity made possible by democracy is the powerlessness of so many people, who still, despite disappointment after disappointment, believe in that process. That feeling of alienation was exploited by the Brexit campaign, which called it, with some justification, the democratic deficit. The EU’s wiser champions recognise the issue, but it is not the only entity that must face that accusation.

In an increasing number of cases, extreme views prevail. The moderate, live-and-let-live majority is disenfranchised. All around the world, that silent majority is paying a high price for surrendering politics to unhinged nationalists, shameless demagogues, cult leaders, religious or tribal fundamentalists, narcissists, or just self-serving carpetbaggers. It is unfortunate that this week’s collapse of efforts to restore powersharing at Stormont — one of the great prizes of the peace process — ticks several of those boxes, no matter how the protagonists might squeal at the accusation. The timing might have had something to do with efforts to paint the newly-appointed Sinn Féin leadership into a corner, but old, unchanging forces were all too plain to see. Personal animosity, collective contempt, a cultural antipathy towards compromise or tolerance, no little fantasy and, most of all, fear and hatred. That conflict’s age-old capacity to weaponise cultural practice, elevated to the status of human rights, was in play, too. Though our polity is far from perfect, it is a paragon compared to the stultifying affront to democracy offered by the North’s protagonists — and that is said far more in sorrow than in celebration. Imagine how the North’s majority, who voted to stay in the EU, must feel? They are being defied by the majority party — barely — and will have no voice in negotiations that may beggar their communities. Hardly a strong argument for participatory democracy. Versions of that argument are now all too common.