If you were to ask most people what they require in a leader they would most likely use terms like intelligent, empathetic, brave, insightful, honorable, understanding, honest, and fair. The list could go on and on. But you get the point. When, however, you then look at the leader that they actually choose (or at least the one they follow) you have to wonder what happened. This pretty much summarizes my analysis of the most recent Presidential election. I believe Bush is a very frightening man and he was selected by a lot of other frightened and frightening people.
It should be no surprise, since this country has a history of allowing it's fear of the bogeyman to rule their lives. One of the founding principles of this country was freedom from tyranny, but almost immediately Africans were stolen from their homeland and brought to America to be enslaved because the new Americans were afraid to do the hard work that was needed to build this country. Indians lost more and more of their freedom to live as they had forever because of the fear of their so called savage nature and were eventually relegated to reservations. Religious beliefs were protected as long as they fit into the Puritan model. Any deviation from the model meant you were a witch and dangerous and you were burned at the stakes. As each new immigrant group came to America they were initially vilified and feared until they figured out how to play the game. Then they became one of the fearful. Once the fearful in America had the system working smoothly here, the country began looking globally for people to fear. And this, class, is why we are celebrating the reselection of our President. The fear factor at its finest.
