there's this idea that, even if liberal democracy may destabilize and eventually host the extinction of your substantive beliefs, it's still in your best interest to agree to operate according to its procedures and norms, thus the whole thing could run on self-interest alone...

but of course it can't; nothing can. there will always be a point where your faction is either so powerful it's obviously in your best interest to abandon the procedures and norms or so weak you have nothing to lose by doing so, though it's not always clear which is happening.

the reality is that liberal democracy depends upon its citizenry – minimally! — desiring peace not just for their own factions, but for the entire populace. this is the substantive commitment that makes humankind — an essentially warlike breed — agree to persuade and be persuaded

and to persuade one's opponent you have to understand them, because you can't appeal to anything — reason, interests, values, emotions — without knowledge of those things first, and you can't succeed in persuasion without genuine knowledge of those things.

but to learn something is to be made vulnerable to it, because the openness that permits learning requires that one entertains the possibility that they may be changed by what they discover. and this very vulnerability, and this commitment to peace for every countryman —

those are the basic elements of love: to will the good of another person, and to be vulnerable to becoming someone different in the process. it turns out that you actually need to love your fellow citizens — indeed, to love your own enemies — for liberal democracy to work.

but who would do a crazy thing like that?