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8 Mandates For Growth
The prime minister’s push against voting rights has no place in mainstream politics
A government that can terrify a population can usually do what it wants with it. If nothing else survives of his journalism, HL Mencken’s warning from 1918 will never perish: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”
British Conservatives and the US Republicans have added a modern game to the demagogic playbook. They are creating an imaginary fear that elections are being rigged in order to rig elections. They will protect democracy by removing the right to vote.
