How Bad Faith Works
On This Piece
Being wrong doesn't break democracy. Incompetence doesn't break democracy. Bad faith does. The distinction matters: someone can be wrong because they have bad information, poor judgment, or face a genuinely hard problem — and that's still compatible with democratic function. Bad faith is different. It's the deliberate abandonment of truth-seeking. And no system built on persuasion can survive that.
Being wrong doesn't break democracy. Incompetence doesn't break democracy. Bad faith does. There's an important difference. Someone can be wrong because they have bad information or made a poor judgment, or because the problem is genuinely hard. That's still compatible with democracy. Bad faith is different. Bad faith is when someone knowingly misrepresents what they believe, when truth becomes optional, when arguments are performed not made, when the goal isn't persuasion, its domination. Bad faith isn't error, it's the abandonment of truth seeking all together, and no system built on persuasion can survive that.