We Should All Thank Donald Trump

How the world’s most inadequate human being has revealed the truth about representative democracy

Image credit: The British Library (The Fall of Icarus)

In the fairytale, representative democracy is a shining achievement of humane values, an approach to self-governance that by involving nearly everyone is superior to the arbitrary rule of kings and emperors and dictators. In the fairytale, representative democracy is the apotheosis of enlightened governance, the ne plus ultra upon which we can rest peacefully throughout all time to come.

Despite the dire outcomes generated by representative democracy over the last two centuries, this fairytale is believed by nearly everyone on the planet. Even dictators and tyrants paint their regimes in the colors of democracy to provide spurious legitimacy, much in the same way as some religionists sects lay claim to the word “science.”

Journalists, whose business is sensationalizing the tiny details of each day in order to grab the eyeballs of the easily entertained, lack the perspective necessary to understand the root cause of the many disastrous events they broadcast. Ordinary people simply accept the fairytale at face value, because this is the easiest thing to do. Academics, bound tightly within the confines of Political Correctness, either laud representative democracy uncritically or…