Reverse-Democracy
An Insightful, Silly Short Story on How to "Solve Politics" - As per Elle Griffin's Writing Prompt
Foreword: Some of you may have seen me Restack a post from
last week that included the writing prompt “Come up with an alternative to democracy.” This post is my response to said prompt.For more information, I will contain the post with the prompt below.
Reverse-Democracy
It was in the year 2036 that humanity discovered the solution to politics.
It ended up being surprisingly simple, actually.
Since no one could agree on the person that they wanted to represent them, “reverse-democracy” was created to reversely empower those who they hated…
That sounds a little twisted, but bear with me. It really was a genius idea.
Instead of battling between parties for success, which would always result in dissatisfied losers, the one who would be elected would be that of the most putrid mind, the most devilish ideas. One of terrible, selfish intellect, one who lacked all empathy for others, one who was so out of touch and twisted and broken and corrupted and how-the-hell-are-they-even-entertaining-the-idea-of-running-for-power that you would genuinely rather keel over and die than watch their reign for a single second. That way, the public could always agree that all of them hated the winner, nullifying political dispute.
Surprisingly, it was never that tricky to find someone like this. The public would have their fun tossing and turning over who possessed the least amount of decency, who was really just “sarcastic” or “a good person underneath” and who truly was pure evil… and then they would vote.
The build up to the vote was as it had always been. There were speeches, parades, propaganda, all the typical fanfare. Those vying for power would believe that the hate they were garnering was nothing aside from what was ordinarily expected from disgruntled voters, and so they would largely ignore it.
When the time came for voting, everyone attended.
There were so many terrible candidates that the public had to vote. Except, even they weren’t privy to the real trick.
On the day of the vote, voters would appear at the voting booth and find the small prompt…
“Shhh, the vote is different this year. Who do you hate the most?” with a little box below the prompt to scrawl their answer.
And so they jotted down their little loathings, folded the paper up and threw it in a box… and then no one spoke about it, as per stipulated law. And then they waited…
This system meant that all previous front-runners were immediately sent to the bottom of the pack. Those with shreds of decency were harder to hate, and thus got less votes. Removing them from potentially getting elected was a good idea though, because even the most endearing of that lot were still plagued with horrible problems underneath.
No, with this new system, the scum was allowed to rise. The most hateful was pushed to the very top and… after what felt like an eternity of counting… won the election.
Ding, ding, ding, “Lucifer Satan the Destroyer” was now in charge!
And before you ask, yes, that was what he had legally changed his name to.
You may expect that, as the worst person ever, Lucifer was both gutless and spineless, but he was quite the opposite. He was, in fact, revoltingly obnoxious. The moment the elections results was announced, he started spouting all sorts of horrible nonsense that discriminated against almost every type of human imaginable.
The power of “leadership” had corrupted him the second his grubby hands were afforded it and he immediately started attempting to enact laws with no proper authority that would have seen the country fall to pieces within a day.
An inside joke was made amongst his population just 16 hours into his reign after he stated that he would “ban being alive” since he believed that it was, in his own words, “effectively loitering in his domain.” There were many a party where that would be referenced, always to be rewarded with a roar of laughter.
Lucifer’s tirade was seemingly in-exhaustive. He was beyond thrilled with this new power that seemed to let him do whatever he wanted, and he certainly would not let it go to waste.
What Lucifer did not realise, however, was that “reverse-democracy” was in effect now. What this meant was that the exact opposite of all his demands was being granted.
So when Lucifer said, “We should put more money into our military, maybe take some pot shots in some cities to keep people on their toes,” money was stripped back from the military and put into infrastructure.
And when he said “I don’t think we need hospitals anymore, they’re a waste of space, I never use them,” money would be diverted to help nurses and other carers and improve their facilities.
Or on the days where he felt “Maybe we should do some discriminating,” those that he showed hate for were provided empowerment.
To save Lucifer from getting suspicious of reverse-democracy, those closest to him would be tasked with living a lie. They came up with elaborate stories to tell him about how the people were both loving his new rules and fearing him at the same time. This always seemed to please him.
Statistics, photos and presentations were all forged so that Lucifer would believe his rules were being enacted. There were even apps on his phone that only he had access to, that would show him falsified public opinion that constantly commended him. Some people found a way to access these social media websites, revealing hilarious leaks that would make you wonder if Lucifer would catch on to the sarcasm… but he never did.
Oh, what a wonderful job it must have been, to fool him.
Famously, one of the best moments in all of this was when Lucifer was taken to a military presentation where all of the equipment was made out of paper mache. Nobody knows how the soldiers kept the straight faces, especially when they showed him the “laser death satellite.” Lucifer had insisted that he wanted to see a demonstration of the laser, but the sergeant had told him, with a stone cold expression, that they had not charged it with enough “cosmic juice” for such a demonstration to occur, and as such Lucifer had to resign to watching a CGI version of it on his phone.
But there were other examples of “reverse-democracy” being beneficial. It was not limited to just physical acts. For example, whenever Lucifer slanted or belittled anything, whether it be race, gender, sexuality, mental illness, physical ability, politics, whatever, large portions of the government’s funds would be donated to helping relevant organisations. And whenever Lucifer actively endorsed another human, they were jailed.
There was no flaw in doing the opposite of what the worst person ever wanted. Trying to find the best person had never been sustainable, for no such thing existed. But finding the worst person… well… that was much easier to locate…
Especially since a lot of them wanted to get into office, whilst a lot of good people just seem content with their lives as is.
The bad people tend to tell you who they are, one way or another.
As time went on, Lucifer’s capers would be live-streamed to the world at large. He was a busy man, constantly coming up with more bullshit for the government to enforce the opposite of. People would tune in regularly to see his antics, cheering whenever he unknowingly did something to benefit them.
Another one of the country’s favourite moments was when Lucifer changed all of the law so that he could be dictator “until the end of time.” An unironic festival was held for Lucifer, as his people had loved all of the positivity he had obliviously brought to them. They dressed in rags and made themselves look especially fearful for the day, to appease their foolish leader. That had sent some bonus wind into his sails.
The people had loved it, watching their terrible dictator resign himself to bettering the world without even knowing it. There were even a few people masquerading as protesters just so Lucifer would evict them from the event and unknowing pledge assistance to their cause.
“You are my people,” he said to resounding cheers, all throughout the day. “And I will lead you.”
People made posters, t-shirts, memorabilia of all kinds to commend their unwitting leader. They indulged in it, married to this idea. There was peace, lovely, lovely peace… for the first time anyone had known.
Unfortunately, Lucifer’s tale does not end as merrily as his people’s.
Lucifer Satan the Destroyer passed away in the year 2070, after a 34 year long reign.
His death was not peaceful, but that should come as no surprise at this point. Lucifer was killed after he made it illegal to wear a seatbelt, as he thought it would encourage drivers to be more conscientious and lead to less crashes overall. It was a fantastic idea, until Lucifer crashed into one of his personal tanks on his way out of an event and flew 55 metres before slamming into asphalt. His funeral was the most watched television in the last one hundred years. The population was sad, for they thought they’d never find someone as toxic as their last dictator… but slowly… as the election season persists… more and more terrible people have started coming out from the cracks of hell.
And all of them seem to believe the lie that “the election will be normal this time.”
They’ll find another.
They always will.
It will be a fine election indeed.
Thanks again to
for the writing prompt. I will link her Substack page below for anyone who would like to check her work out.
I guess my idea did end up just becoming democracy 2.0, but I think there’s enough of a twist on it to be an entertaining idea. Regardless, I hope you guys enjoyed the read. If you want to stick around and read another silly piece, check out the one below.
Clever, hilarious, and...is this fiction?
Ok this was so so fun!!!!!!!! I can't wait to share this one with the Elysian crew!