Hold here. They aren't. Immediately letting 'the people' off the hook for blame is a somewhat modern fallacy. These people democratically choose the leader. You can't just 'not blame' them, as a group, for an eventual failure if they consistently choose poorly.
Yes, but the author doesn't explain why they don't blame citizens. It's reasonable to make the argument that citizens have very little power to fix certain problems. E.g. I haven't had the option of a candidate willing to fix (actually fix) this problem, at any level of government, in my lifetime.
I'd start my response to your comment with Cambridge Analytica and go from there to all the ways that the people can be manipulated into a fabricated consensus by the powers that be.
Evil Brits messing around in the US! Let's boycott the US, that will teach them!
Your entire mentality is stuck in the third world: wanting to ally yourself to ever larger bullies without ever taking personal responsibility to stand up against the actual problem entities yourself because that is too hard.
Sorry if I'm missing something, but which bullies am I willing to align myself to?
> without ever taking personal responsibility to stand up against the actual problem entities yourself because that is too hard
Tell me more about how we're not able to take care of ourselves?
> Your entire mentality is stuck in the third world
Typical from a colonialist mentality to think I terms of first and third worlds, nomenclature that doesn't hold anymore I the current geopolitical landscape.
> Evil Brits messing around in the US! Let's boycott the US, that will teach them!
People that have zero arguments normally tend to default to mockery and irony in order to attack the messenger since dismantling the arguments takes effort.
Thanks, it was quite entertaining to read your trolling comments. Keep them coming.
Two thirds of American voters took the worst of the options though - either voted for Trump, or didn’t vote at all. It’s a majority problem, and I would totally excuse even third party voters here. But a large chunk of Americans couldn’t even be assed to do the bare minimum!
Voters can hold elected officials accountable by not re-electing politicians, not donating to them, and supporting candidates that will better represent them.
The problem is that most citizens are not civically knowledgeable or engaged which is why we continue to have to choose the lesser of two evils that are often the same in policy.
The choice is between Anti Consumer Jerk #1 and Slightly Less Of An Anti Consumer Jerk #2. One of them is going to be in charge. There is no choice to simply not elect someone, and writing in a non-jerk is unrealistic.
A civically informed and engaged population also has a choice to organize against the political establishment, run their own candidates, or create political action committees. The PAC can endorse and otherwise work to support a better candidate to win a primary (See David Hogg's Leaders We Deserve PAC), or if you don't mind getting a little dirty, the PAC can raise enough money to buy the politicians and bend them to their will.
I do admit that this is more difficult for Presidential elections, but certainly this can be effective at the state and local level and arguably could be used effectively within Congress if done right. In fact, we might be seeing some of that begin to happen in states like Maine given the response Graham Platner has already received. Kat Abughazaleh is another example. She's a progressive who is taking a somewhat novel approach to her campaign in Chicago. And of course you have Zohran Mamdani in NYC mayoral race.
Hold here. They aren't. Immediately letting 'the people' off the hook for blame is a somewhat modern fallacy. These people democratically choose the leader. You can't just 'not blame' them, as a group, for an eventual failure if they consistently choose poorly.