On Tuesday, August 16, 2022 at 2:39:17 PM UTC-4, ltlee1 wrote:
"Within the past decade in the United States, there has emerged a number of candidates and movements that don’t fit the mold of traditional politics.
On the Right, the Tea Party built a following. They paved the way for Donald Trump, who managed to galvanize support among wildly different groups: evangelical Christians, Rightwing nationalists, traditional conservatives, and working-class voters in
typically blue states. Similar politicians, like Ted Cruz, seem to be following suit.
On the Left emerged Occupy Wall Street, Bernie Sanders, and a greater movement of democratic socialism. As Sanders’s presidential bid becomes history, politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Illan Omar, and to some extent, Elizabeth Warren, will
take the reigns going forwards.
Although these movements on the Left have not wielded as much power and influence as their Republican counterparts in American politics, southern European politics tells a different story. Greece’s Syriza and Spain’s Podemos movements made
unprecedented wins in their countries’ parliamentary systems.
...
In The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics, John B. Judis argues that these candidates and movements employed a form of logic called populism. This logic can be summed up simply: it pits “the people
against a ruling-class “elite.”
They promise to “drain the swamp” or “tax the billionaire class.” They posit that “elites” are the cause of our discontent. If the “will of the people” were not neglected by the ruling-class, we could achieve progress and prosperity.
This rhetoric looks to unite people across traditional barriers of class, race, or ethnicity to unite against an elite that harms the general good. It is a powerful when in opposition to an existing government, but populists can lose strength as they
assume power and become part of the “elite” that they promised to take down."
https://inquiringreader.org/texts/2021-02-03-the-populist-explosion/
Why Democracy Produces Incompetent Leaders?
"Why People Have Lost Trust in Democratically-Elected Politicians: The Rise of Incompetent Political Leaders
Most people don’t trust democracy to deliver.
https://impakter.com/why-democracy-produces-incompetent-leaders-and-how-to-fix-it/
According to 2019 Pew survey, trust in government is at a historical low: only 17% of Americans today say they can trust the government to do what is right “just about always” (3%) or “most of the time” (14%).
The situation in the rest of the world is not much better. A 27 countries Pew survey (April 2019) revealed that a majority (51%) are dissatisfied with the way democracy is working. Anti-establishment leaders, parties and movements have emerged on both
the right and left of the political spectrum. And most people in developing countries find authoritarian figures more trustworthy than democratically-elected politicians. Hence the success of the “China model”.
Bottom line, elections don’t deliver the kind of political leaders people want.
After a honeymoon period between voters and their winning candidate, often as short as a month, he or she always disappoints. Why? Is it the fault of the voters, do they expect too much? Or don’t they understand what is going on – how complex the job
of governing can be, how campaign promises can’t be kept?
It has been convincingly argued that, yes, it’s the voters’ fault. Dambisa Moyo, the well-known Zambian economist and author of Dead Aid (2009) in which she famously argued that foreign aid made Africa poorer, placed the blame squarely on voters:
“Voters generally favor policies that enhance their own well-being with little consideration for that of future generations or for long-term outcomes. Politicians are rewarded for pandering to voters’ immediate demands and desires…”
...
“Because democratic systems encourage such short-termism, it will be difficult to solve many of the seemingly intractable structural problems slowing global growth without an overhaul of democracy.”
...
So what are the obstacles to good governance? Let’s list the obstacles Moyo has identified – plus a few of my own:
(1) Too many elections...
(2) Interest group lobbying: This is something Moyo highlights: Politicians respond to the demands of their funders instead of their voters; this can destroy democracy, resulting in the One Percent governing the 99 Percent;...
(3) Voter ignorance and disinformation: As Peter Coy, the economics editor for Bloomberg despairingly noted in a review of Moyo’s book, “voters can be tribal and poorly informed”, and he cites a survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center (U. of
Pennsylvania) that found that out of 1,013 U.S. adults only a quarter could name all three branches of government. ...
(4) Frequent recourse to the referendum tool: I covered this problem in an article written after Brexit, “Why a referendum is a bad idea” ...
(5) Incompetent political leaders: As of now, in a democracy there are no requirements for running for office, none at all; anyone can wake up in the morning and decide he or she wants to run for the White House; examples are easily multiplied, ..."
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)