Part 1 - The Power of Ideas: Why Democracies Decay Long Before They Collapse The podcast episode, The Power of Ideas was released in May, 2023 without an accompanying blog post. Given the current state of geopolitics and the continued erosion of Democracy in the U.S. and elsewhere, I thought now would be a good time write the post and to draw listeners and readers attention back to the ideas discussed in the podcast episode and in Dr. Ruth Backstrom ’s book,  “Igniting a Bold New Democracy: Empowering Citizens through Game-Changing Reforms” We tend to talk about democracy as if it were a machine. If something goes wrong, the instinct is to reach for policy fixes, institutional reforms, or procedural tweaks. Tighten this rule. Adjust that process. Replace one leader with another. But democracies rarely fail because the machinery suddenly breaks. They fail because the   ideas   that give the machinery meaning quietly erode. Long before constitutions are threatened or...