>we are (used to be?) a country that believes in democracy and the will of our citizens
We either need to mass-educate everyone on the whole Edward Bernays subconscious manipulation thing (which we won't do because it would catastrophically break PR, advertising, political campaigns and more) or do it ourselves, do it thoroughly, and prevent others from accessing our citizens eyes/ears, which is what we're trying to do except for that last part.
We're far, far beyond "we'll just let our well-educated citizens decide for themselves", and it's weird to see someone act like that's how anything works. That idea's been broken for closing in on a century.
We either need to mass-educate everyone on the whole Edward Bernays subconscious manipulation thing (which we won't do because it would catastrophically break PR, advertising, political campaigns and more) or do it ourselves, do it thoroughly, and prevent others from accessing our citizens eyes/ears, which is what we're trying to do except for that last part.
We're far, far beyond "we'll just let our well-educated citizens decide for themselves", and it's weird to see someone act like that's how anything works. That idea's been broken for closing in on a century.