...
Democracy is only as good as the people doing the voting, who are about as good (as the rules they don't protest againsts) and the content they consume, which is about as good as certain groups make it to be.
What's particularly amazing about Brexit is that many of its chief architects have not been shamed or exiled from society for spinning a yarn that fell apart when confronted with the smallest slither of reality. No, instead, the primary advocate may very well be our next prime minister.
What a time to be alive.
which in turn is brought to us by the good old days of our shared delusions, like divine right of kings (thx magic sky daddy and all his faithful unbiased selfless worldly interpreters!)
Only democracy in the western world where there is so much money involved in the elections, is the USA.
A few million can have an outsized influence in New Zealand. Which can mean other countries interfere (not just wealthy broligarches). There was a significant controversy in the 2005 New Zealand elections regarding budgets. It is alleged US fundamentalists funded the Exclusive Brethren Church to produce pamphlets in support of the National Party, by smearing both the Labour Party and the Green Party. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_New_Zealand_election_funding...
Peter Thiel was given a New Zealand passport by our National Party (maybe by being chummy, although obviously his wealth helped him). The only reason he might not influence NZ politics would be if he doesn't give a shit about our politics.
The wealthiest person born in New Zealand is Graeme Hart worth ~USD10G ranked by Forbes at about #340.
For the New Zealand 2023 General Election, political parties officially spent a total of about USD8M.
There's a lot of scope for malign influence here.
Well, it really wasn't, and still isn't. It's a republic: the people decide who make the laws and who executes them. In between these choices there's never really been anything for the people to do but ask their representatives to do things.