Why you shouldn't miss public participation forums on budget

A couple of weeks ago, long before the Finance Bill was published, social media was awash with how the Finance Bill 2025 is such a punitive document. So many Kenyans swallowed the ruse, hook line and sinker and even leaders, whom you would expect to know better, begun sharing the content of a non-existent bill. This revealed an interesting phenomenon in our society today. Social media and artificial intelligence has led to rapid growth of the "mob" that James Madison warned about in his writings in Federalist Paper 10. There is a sectarianism in our public discourse which remains a festering wound in the body of our democracy; the desire to present oneself as an angel and their political opposition as the devil reincarnate.