I'm talking out of my ass, but it could mean that the natural conclusion of democracy is mob rule, where nothing matters besides the sentiment of "the mob", a large group of like-minded people. Here he was falsely accused of theft but because enough people believed the lie, he was taken to jail based solely on sentiment.

Or not. This is my take on his "democracy manifest" comment.

[–] RedditRefugee69@lemmy.world 19 points 3 months ago (1 children)

That’s a good take, but I think it is more likely a sarcastic comment. A comment that Australia should be a democratic government with rights but now it’s a police state that no longer resembles democracy (in his angry opinion)

[–] Longpork3@lemmy.nz 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

There is a recent New Zealand Today episode that interviews him. IIRC, he was involved in a number of low level scams at the time, and was arrested while dining on a stolen credit card. Man was just a natural showman, who wasnt going to go down quietly.

[–] someguy3@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

Iirc he was mistaken as the person doing scams. Thus the confusion why he was being arrested after being told they wanted to talk outside.

[–] HonkTonkWoman@lemm.ee 8 points 3 months ago

I believe he’s commenting on the idea that state of the current democracy has led to his wrongful arrest.

He’s asking onlookers, “Is this really what you voted for?”

[–] NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I would argue it just means that the Democracy that was created as the Australian government is (among other things) what led to his wrongful arrest while eating out and being manhandled on camera. -He just said it in an extraordinarily eloquent way. You could also draw some additional inferences based on his behavior, tone, and choice of words, but I can't really confirm any 100%.