If there is one thing Donald Trump’s 4 years in the oval office did, it was to definitively show that our leaders are mere figureheads. There are other pied pipers running the show. Puppetmasters.
It is even getting worse. We have bumbling Boris’ recent Peppa the Pig ruminations. We have Joe “say it ain’t so” Biden playing the role of a later day zombie in front of the nation. Why do we put up with these buffoons? If they did the things like this working for me - I’d throw their poor ass on the pavement. I mean it.
Despite our unflagging belief in the “great men” hypothesis, it really is the proximate, everyday decisions, on so many levels that keep society, a political group, chugging along.
However the focus on “leaders” really sidetracks society and makes us take our eye off the prize, makes us waste energy that would be better focused on the actual decision-making and consensus-building needed in a liberal democracy. So why don’t we just throw out the notion of “a leader”? It can be done.
It can be done but we have to change entirely how we think about governance. We are still thinking about the ruled and the rulers. “We the people” exists only as a slogan.
Note our language all the time, (put in a leader’s name) will fix the nation’s infrastructure, (put in a leader’s name) will provide X billion to small businesses, (put in a leader’s name) will create a new program to boost productivity.
Get my point?
“Imagine there’s no leaders. It’s easy if you try.”