Do you think democracy is a good idea? Why or why not? 1/

I ask because pretty everyone I interact with seems to self-identify as on the side of democracy, but a lot of people express cynicism about the electorate and the public’s capacity to participate in reasoned deliberation. the most straightforward implication would be democracy is a bad idea. 2/

Do you support democracy anyway on purely negative grounds? (i.e. “it’s the worst system except for all the others that have been tried from time to time”) 3/

How do you reconcile the deficiencies of contemporary publics, as you perceive them, with a claim to being a stalwart for democracy? /fin