It is rare to catch Juan Cole, who (together with Glenn Greenwald) is one of our few humane commentators who is not afraid of facts, in an act of nostalgia: "It used to be that political divisions were about the different methods proposed to deal with social problems by persons with different political philosophies. Nowadays, politics is about which fantasy-land the politicians and their admirers reside in." In context, while attacking Rick Perry, Cole extols Jack Kemp, everybody's "thinking man's favorite politician" -- after Kemp left politics, of course. (In his time he was demonized by pro-choice-ers and labor leaders. [Did Chargers-fans ever learn to love the man?])
Democratic politics has always been and, until people are fully Enlightened, will always be a volatile mix of fantasy, passion, and the threat of violence. Every time is lucky if the worst bouts of violence can be avoided. (Even rioting in England is not so rare.)
Sometimes the fantasy and passion are directed at humane ends, but there will always be politicians that will promote and exploit our worst instincts. Sometimes, when there are external threats (or worse, nuclear annihilation) or crises that focus the minds unifying leaders that inspire us all can rise to the occasion. But there is no law of necessity that one will.
None of this is to deny that we shouldn't hope for wisdom and luck in our politicians and the people that elect them; we can also certainly tinker with our institutions to prevent excessively bad outcomes. Lucky are those who live in communities with lots of mutual trust--this is often the product of deep institutional patters (rule of law, women's education, self-government, civil society, empowering religions, etc). But nostalgia, which anesthetizes the mind, has a tendency to make us blind to the real threats we face. End of rant.
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