> You cannot have a democracy and rapid social change to your preferred specs. You can either strip the people who hold reprehensible beliefs of the vote, or you can work diligently over generations to change the culture. But as long as you have a democracy, you will never be able to create change that sticks by simply wielding the power temporarily granted to you.

Voter suppression has repeatedly happened and has been mostly scuff free [0]. Working diligently through generation also means building the means to protect the advancement you achieve, and not just by having them in the rules, but to be able to enforce these rules.

My mental image of this is Tulsa: when you steadily but firmly create a vibrant place for your community for decades, to have it burn in flames within a day, with no significant reparation, no significant support, and just a footnote in some textbooks.

When I say "power" I don't mean in some limited framing, I mean anything that can actually leverage your position in a realistic way. Capital, cultural influence, military or political power come to mind, but whatever form it takes, I think a group needs to be able to stand its ground if it chalenges the status quo, whatever time frame it chooses to do it.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_suppression_in_the_Unite...