31 May

These are the 3 self-proclaimed ‘Great Leaders’ in the world today. What do they all have in common? Their power came from popular revolutions. Populism. People forget both the Russian and Chinese leaders today came from two popular revolutions, in China and Russia, in the early 20th century. Revolutions for the people, by the people, all that sort of nonsense. Popularity causes tyranny. We know that’s true in schools, we’ve all lived it. Adult life isn’t any different. There’s not one single way in which the popularity of something is a measure of how correct or important it is. This is why elections are the greatest enemies of democracy. Mass elections are only a century old. They allowed high school populism to undermine all of our democratic institutions. If you think that’s a stretch, Trump’s supporters actually launched an assault on the US parliament. And he’s out there right now trashing judges and the law. The currency of social media is also popularity. Likes. For that reason it’s pouring petrol on the fire of turning all adult life into high school. Run by popularity. Trump won the presidency using Twitter.