On mood swings and sane talk..............

Let me submit, as my parting word, a warning to the skeptic:  the democratic process is in peril of self-negation.  The public's mood swings are driven by failures of government, not hope for change.  Each failure bleeds legitimacy from the system, erodes faith in the machinery of democracy, and paves the way for the opposite extreme. 

. . . A rebellious public, sectarian in temper and utopian in expectations, collides everywhere with institutions that rule by default and blunder, it seems, by habit.  Industrial hierarchies fer no longer able to govern successfully in a world swept to the horizon by a tsunami of information.  An egalitarian public is unwilling to assume responsibility under any terms.  The muddled half-steps and compromises necessary to democracy may become untenable under the pressure applied by these irreconcilable forces.

. . . I wrote this book, in part, to invite the discussion.  I did so in the manner of a man who notices a fire blazing in a corner of a locked room:  I don't want to start a panic, only some sane talk among the occupants about how best to put the thing out.

-Martin Gurri,  The Revolt of the Public