These votes were cynically manipulated, and democracy does not yet have an immune system to deal with that kind of malice.

Sure it does. It’s called “more democracy.”

I can’t add any more correct points of view than Svetlana Voreskova or Larry Kelly have already mentioned. So, instead, let me focus on the extreme danger in even suggesting that democracy, over huge populations of tens and hundreds of millions of voters, can be manipulated thusly.

Where does that notion come from? It flows logically from another notion, that the voters erred in both the vote for Trump and Brexit. If you believe THAT, then the next logical step is to say “well, if the voters can err (or be manipulated, cast it any way you wish) then we have to find a system other than democracy, because democracy has shown itself dangerous.”

And if you believe THAT, you’re right where Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and a host of other “colorful” characters of the 20th century were.

Don’t go there.

The voters *cannot* err, by definition. Brexit is supposed to leave the EU, and Trump is the correct president for the US at this time. How both decisions play out is another matter entirely; but neither vote was an “error”.

Unless you start down the path of those other guys, of course. Inadvisable.