” ” Since 2010, the widespread use of social media and smartphones has radically changed information consumption. ” (Matt Anderson Photography | Getty Images)

If an alien landed on Earth today, knew nothing about human nature, and witnessed the rhetoric surrounding the 2024 presidential election, they would invariably come to the conclusion that America is heading toward cataclysm. A political, social and economic disaster so disastrous that it would spell the end of democracy.

Is this foreign prognosis about democracy correct? If he gathered all his information from major presidential candidates or social media, it would seem like a fair indictment.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump view each other as threats to democracy. Both said that if the other wins, it could be the last election. Never. Period. Democracy is over. This discourse is exacerbated by an endless barrage of online pundits and trolls.

These accusations continue to seduce 60 percent adults, filling them with anxiety about the November 5 results. Despite this blatant demagoguery, American democracy will not fail after this election.

It is the same political system that triggered a global democratic revolution in the late 18th century, he twice defeated the British Empire, held himself accountable for slavery and segregation, enshrined women’s right to vote, and defeated the Nazis and the Soviet Union . More recently, American democracy repelled an attempted insurrection on January 6, 2020, and withstood violent riots in the summer of that year.

Time and again, democracy has demonstrated exceptional resilience as a form of government. For all the bluster and apparent threats, government institutions and legal safeguards against impulsive or harmful changes remain in place. Even if a particular candidate comes to power and attempts to eliminate entire sections of the national government, two other branches can prevent such actions. Those branches that must be concerned with their own self-preservation.

Taking the position that one presidential candidate poses a greater democratic risk than the other is a historically meaningless argument that rests on the pillars of sensationalism.

The level of national political anxiety raises far more serious concerns about the ways in which we consume information and how this shapes our understanding of the health of democracy. If the majority of adult voters expect an imminent failure of democracy, they will myopically view any political incident – ​​expected or unexpected – as a paving stone on the road to failure. We must ask ourselves whether this expectation is accurately calibrated.

Too online?

Since 2010The widespread use of social networks and smartphones has radically changed information consumption. So much so that Generation Z has found an appropriate expression for it. No, it’s not skib, sigma, rizz, what’s up, cat?, or Ohio, it’s “also online.” This is meant to convey a person who spends so much time online that it becomes their entire world.

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt set the standard for research into the behavioral rewiring of Generation Z in the contemporary information environment. However, could it be that the same shake-up is happening for all generations of voting age? The way we consume information influences our habits and 54 percent adults get information via social networks. These adults may experience a shift in their democratic expectations: demanding that real-world politics reflect the digital world algorithmically cultivated for them.

The algorithms of the digital world hit users with only the information they want to interact with. In addition to causing an incipient addiction, consuming information in this way tacitly encourages users to refrain from moderating their behavior or communicating in a civil manner.

Users construct, consciously or unintentionally, intellectual cocoons that insulate them from conflicting opinions, thereby legitimizing their subjective expectations as concrete realities. These caustic expectations paid off catastrophic real world policy consequenceselevated catastrophic thinkingand prevented the development of essential civic habits.

Democracy requires specific expectations

In Federalist 51James Madison recognizes that “(a) Dependence upon the people is, without doubt, the principal check upon the government…” This was a stunning admission from Madison. He had just spent an entire summer building experimental democratic institutions the likes of which the world had never seen. In the end, he had to admit that they would fail if the people they governed did not had essential behavioral habits –hhabits based on specific expectations of democracy.

Madison considered unbridled ambition and factionalism a death blow to a healthy democracy. He feared that individuals would form political factions to unsuccessfully constrain the government to their ambitions, thereby creating tyranny. Separating the powers of government would quell this situation, but only popular habits such as humility and moderation would act as a real firewall. These habits force individuals to enter into the the world beyond their heads see it from a contradictory angle. Perspectives that will rightly calibrate real-world expectations.

It is at the intersection of these essential habits and the health of democracy that contemporary information consumption lies as a harbinger. We can predict where this harbinger will take democracy: where moderation and humility are neither expected nor cultivated.

The alien’s prognosis is good for the wrong reasons. It is not the candidates, but the way we consume information that is pushing democracy towards cataclysm. Living “too online” has created a shift in expectations, one that is not compatible with democratic longevity.