Politics & Power Quote by George Michael

George Michael’s jab lands because it flips an American boast into a liability. “Too democratic” isn’t a defense of elites so much as a critique of how majoritarian tools get marketed as moral progress while quietly preserving the power to stall it. The line is blunt-populist in the best way: he’s not theorizing democracy, he’s calling out how “letting the people decide” can become a polite procedure for keeping certain people down.

The specific intent is to puncture the romance of direct democracy - the idea that putting everything to a vote automatically makes it fair. Michael points to ballot measures and propositions as mechanisms that can launder prejudice through process: if discrimination is passed by referendum, it arrives wearing the costume of legitimacy. That’s the subtext: bigotry doesn’t always need a demagogue; it can thrive in daylight as long as it’s stapled to civic participation and framed as “community standards.”

Context matters. Michael came of age as a global pop star during the AIDS crisis, when queer lives were debated like policy abstractions and rights were frequently treated as negotiable. From that vantage point, American-style plebiscites read less like empowerment and more like endless re-litigation of someone’s humanity. “Prolong bigotry indefinitely” is the key phrase: a vote can be re-run, a right can be revisited, and minorities are forced into a permanent campaign for basic dignity.

It works because it’s both an outsider’s critique and a celebrity’s weary realism: fame doesn’t stop the crowd from deciding you’re still up for a referendum.