Throughout history people have been dissatisfied with the leaders of the world. Athens cycled through every single kind of government, tyranny, democracy (the real kind), republic, oligarchy, aristocracy, and monarchy, and were never happy with it. Emperors of Rome were killed in office, people hated the monarchs of England and France. Tribal leaders were often killed so that someone else could take over leadership. Tsars and Tsarinas of Russia have a bloody history of being murdered by their own people. Even great leaders who wanted to end suffering, like Alexander II of Russia and Abraham Lincoln were killed because some people weren't happy with their policies and changes.
This is still alive today. People are still unhappy with current leaders. Whether or not they are actually to blame for the faults of the world. Whether or not they are actually trying to influence change. People are still going to be unhappy. No matter what the president or other current leader does, people will still disapprove. People will still complain that the leader is to blame because their lives are difficult and not perfect. It seems utterly impossible for an entire group to be pleased with government and leadership.
The premise behind a democracy is "majority rule". The campaign of 2008 made a lot of promises to young Americans and the financially downtrodden. Revolutionary campaigns to get those groups out to vote were employed, and succeeded. Unfortunately, revolutionary methods were not used to educate this new voting populace. I can honestly say that 99% of the cars I pass on the interstate with Obama stickers on them are driven by black Americans.
ReplyDeleteThe campaign turned to one of slander, as they usually do. And the cries of bring our soldiers home, give us more entitlements, and so forth led to a massive vote for the candidate who made said promises. Could the other candidate have done any better? We may never know. The biggest lesson that anyone needs to take from this past election is to make sure the voters are truly knowledgeable about the choices they are given.