D E M A G O G Y AND OUR ELECTION

WHY DO CHARISMATIC DEMAGOGUES OFTEN GET ELECTED FOR LEADERSHIP?

“Democracy is the worst form of Government except all other forms that have been tried.”   -  Sir Winston Churchill

I have been struggling with this question all my adult life. Whenever an unqualified and unscrupulous person is elected for any leadership that I care about, I would feel saddened and depressed for a long time, then gradually, I would accept my fate and get over it. But a lingering thought that “uneducated and misinformed masses always deserve their elected leader” remains with me. 

Demagogy, in the political sphere, can be defined as a political activity by some people that seeks the support of the ordinary masses by appealing to their desires and their ethnic, religious and economic prejudices with false claims and promises, rather than rational arguments, in order to get elected to the position of power. These behaviors are called ”populist demagoguery” and the person who does it is called "popular demagogue.”

Luckily, not all the populist demagogues get elected. Those who get elected have some additional personal characteristics, such as charisma, excess energy, the ability to make good and convincing speeches, narcissism and lack of feelings of empathy, to such a degree that could be called by professionals as personality disorders. Their lust for power is endless and they would justify doing anything to achieve it. They also feel the same impulse for attention and adulation. They think that they are genius and superior to anybody else and therefore they don’t need any  help from experts, the know the best of everything. Once they have achieved a position of power, they use it for personal gains, self- promotion and self-enrichments.

On the other hand, in many countries and societies, people with a high level of intellect, intellectual honesty, knowledge, success in life, compassion and empathy, moral and ethical principles are not interested to run and to obtain a position of power.

As I see it, and to my unscientific sense, this is the main deficiency and weakness of democracy.  Because it leaves the position of power wide open to charismatic demagogues to gain power, and thrive by using the extra powers the position gives them.

I believe the central idea of The American Constitution, The Bill of Rights, and Divisions and Power sharing in the different branches of the government comes from the Founding Fathers’ knowledge of the weakness of democracy. And in trying to protect American people from such unqualified leaders, while preparing The American Constitution.

Indeed, when we look at the democratically elected but unqualified world leaders in human history, we see that democratically elected, populist demagogues like Hitler, Mussolini, Yeltsin and others hated democracy and democratic institutions. The first thing they did was to discredit and control all democratic institutions of the nation, including the free press, the courts and the military so that the truth would never be known and they would never be criticized by these democratic institutions. 

So are the present dictators of our modern world. These tyrants even possess more advantages to brainwash their people with propaganda by state controlled TV, newspapers, podcasts, social media, spying and trolling. These types of leaders surround themselves with weak but same-minded people, cronies, family members and/or people with high level of ambition who would always remain a “yes man” for  shenanigans of their leaders.

It is very unfortunate that even in our digital information century, many people of all social and education classes are attracted to these charismatic demagogues. I believe that these are the same strange dynamics that are at play with cults and with spiritual gurus that defy common logic. There is a blind devotion by the masses, regardless of their leader’s countless and repeated  unethical and immoral behaviors.

As I see it, we have to find novel and better ways to protect our democracy and democracies in the entire world from these unscrupulous demagogue leaders and dictators, and try to better  educate masses about democracy.  Because we all live on a small, interconnected and interdependent planet called mother earth. The abuse of power and being above the law, in one country, sooner or later, could affect us all.