We all love a crowd-pleasing act. It is fun to be amazed and entertained by improbable performances that lift us out of our ordinary thoughts. We willingly spend time and money to enjoy the show .
Every crowd pleaser starts as a clown. Bright clothes, exaggerated gestures, loud sounds, and crazy antics. No magician wants anyone to be looking at the sky while they pull a rabbit out of a hat. They must keep us focused all the time on what they want us to see. A wonderful moment, when all goes well .
But is it any way to run a country? Democracy relies on it. Other systems may use brute force, or rigid tradition, or even intellectual logic. But votes (real free votes, anyway) require a massive crowd-pleasing act, first to grab attention, then to follow through on what must be done .
All systems have flaws. The exact type of the democratic tradition matters. Technology and situations radically change things. In a rainstorm a magic show doesn’t work. There’s no reason to believe crowd pleasers are worse than any other kind of ruler .
The only problem – in all methods – is when the audience is too small, too isolated, too ignorant and begins to believe it represents everyone else, or a god, or the universe. Then the performer becomes purely a cult leader rallying fanatics – and often only trying to maintain a tiny audience’s attention and duration .
HuntingtonHarborThoughts 