Is she running for senate or something

I think that's fair. I've just heard a lot of maximalist "outcomes-don't-matter-at-all", which is unnerving, because if that's true then everything is just rhetoric and the good guys have no long term structural advantage. We'd just be at the whim of whoever is better at manipulating the public.

"When you have the power you should do good things on their own merits, and it’s disconnected from electoral outcomes."

All I'm arguing is it can't be *completely* disconnected from electoral outcomes, which also seems to be the position Stancil takes. Obvs it's not as connected as we would like

All of this is straining under the sway of a populist demagogue, but to say outcomes don't matter AT ALL, that popular will does NOTHING to improve governance is going too far.

Despite the current extreme polarization, politics is not a zero-sum game. People broadly agree that economic growth and curing disease is good. Crime, corruption, pollution are bad. They don't want to die in meaningless wars.

Democracy *does* create a conflict resolution system, it's just not what gets the kids in Madagascar in the streets. They think they should be the ones making decisions because they will make better decisions that will improve their lives

Right, but then the argument above is that the grievances aren't actually addressed any better under democracy (because if they were outcomes would have improved, policies and parties that better address grievances would tend to win out)

Name 5

People don't wage democratic revolutions to create some sort of conflict resolution mechanism. They do it because they have actual grievances that aren't being addressed because people in power aren't accountable to them.

It's less vulnerable to the depraved whims of a dictator such as invading Ukraine. You can point to Iraq and Vietnam but we were forced to leave both because of public opinion and each had profound effects on our politics.

I agree democracy doesn't produce ideal outcomes, but it does produce better ones, on average. It doesn't just stifle violence — people get actual grievances addressed, because they have actual power.

That wasn't my intent. I know you're not arguing for despotism. My question was if you don't think democracy improves outcomes, isn't this a lot of work for no tangible payoff. It's not meant as an attack on you

Did I insult you in some way?

I never said it achieves "ideal" anything. But I do think democracies make better decisions, have lower levels of corruption, and enjoy greater prosperity because you are polling from all of society with many different viewpoints and more information than a single potentially crazed despot.

It's the scenario you've outlined in which popular will has no relation to popular good.

Right, so a feeling of autonomy which is basically hollow because it can't actually improve your situation, and stability, which plenty of authoritarian regimes achieve through propaganda, etc If this is true democracy in screwed and perhaps not worth saving. But I don't think it is.

If allowing people to pick their own rulers doesn't improve outcomes then what's the point? You're saying it's purely symbolic and we'd be just as well off with a despot?