"It is not that communities aren't capable of recognizing the effects of good or bad policies on the ground. However, the strong sense of trust that micro-nations have in their leaders often predominates. Communities may not have enough information to know that the person may be the wrong leader (that they may, indeed, be traveling in the wrong bus), and they may refuse to hear other perspectives that are critical of them."
This quote reminds me of our election process in the United States. "Communities may not have enough information to know that the person may be the wrong leader," even in the United States where we supposedly have all the advantages of modern day technology, web research abilities, and televised campaigns.
Our country has gotten so much larger than it was and is so much more diverse than it was when it was founded. Additionally, media coverage of the campaigns is really the only way our citizens can observe the campaigns. The result, in my opinion, is a lack of connection with our leaders, something that used to be vitally important in the pre-television campaign days. Media is so easily influenced by forces other than the presidential candidate, and that is arguably a good thing. However, the quality of those outside opinions and the degree to which they influence the popular vote is scary to me.
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