November 17, 2025

The difference between a Democracy and a Dictatorship is that in a Democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a Dictatorship you don’t have to waste your time voting.

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994), German-American writer, Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and Tales of Ordinary Madness (1972), in The Cynic’s Lexicon, Jonathon Green, ed. (London: 1986), p.36

So, isn’t that the best argument for dictatorship—that it spares you having to wait in a queue outside a polling station, assuming you even bother to vote?

The trouble with this quotation is that it assumes democracy begins and ends with voting. That just sets the stage and populates the cast. The real fun of democracy is the politics that goes on between elections.