This dumb Salon article is just gaslighting. It's whole point can be summarized as pushing the logical fallacy that 'if you care about the economy, then you don't care about democracy.'

They never really established how or why democracy was at risk, yet they found that the majority of the public, which they characterized as too dumb to understand politics or economics and suggest they simply "take their cues from trusted elites about how they should think about politics and what they should do about it."

They also seem to have no clue what "fascism" is, nor do they attempt to explain why they throw the buzz-word around. Chris Hedges suggests that dysfunctional democracy can easily slip into fascism, but he does that by projecting that the public would follow any public figure who expressed hate towards the ruling class. This does have some fascist ties to it

Yet, Salon fails to connect the constant hate propagandized towards "Conservatives", Republicans, Trump, and anyone who disagrees on political topics as this same form of fascism. The kind of fascism that would call border security racism, while lack of border security only hurts legal immigration, you know those people doing things correctly and waiting years, as well as supports the drug and sex slave smuggling industry.

The public sees approaching war, economic disaster, inflation, and exploding gas/energy costs already affecting them. They know this is a pressing danger.

Some of the public have been sold that democracy might be under some kind of vague threat, because they've been propagandized so heavily about it. The biggest threat is democracy might not vote the way they wanted, so they must remove the risks of those whom they disagree with, from participating.

Salon's own source disprove their gaslighting narrative. It is not that they trade strong economy for democracy. The CBS study they reference says their concern is that the "economy and country's direction is seen as bad; out of control."

CBS are dirty democracy haters too. They try to trick readers into thinking that bipartisan ballot oversight isn't an integral part of election security, required by law in most states to ensure the election is secure. Due to twisted interpretations of voting privacy laws, citizen observers are the only security, the only oversight permitted at all, frequently enshrined in law as the key to all election security. Yet, that security was suspended, roped off in a corner, and tricked into leaving with fake water-main break deceptions, in most urban counties that make up the battle ground states in the 2020 election.

A big majority of Republicans support the idea of private citizens challenging elections officials as they process and report vote counts on election night.

And two-thirds favor the idea of private citizens patrolling ballot drop-boxes and polling places. They're alone among partisans in that — independents and Democrats are opposed.

The whole thing from both is just the an insane and twisted drivel of mental gymnastics that must be targeted and the lowest of low hanging fruit.