Democracy When the People Are Thinking: Revitalizing Our Politics Through Public Deliberation

to participate in the great decisions of government. There was, Lippmann brooded, no “intrinsic moral and intellectual virtue to majority rule.” Lippmann’s disenchantment with democracy anticipated the mood of today’s elites. From the top, the public, and the swings of public opinion, appeared irrational and uninformed. The human material out of wh

As we lose the ability to listen to each other, democracy becomes less meaningful and closer to a census of the various tribes, who each vote based more on tribal loyalties than on a judicious balancing of priorities.