Is democracy in some way fatally flawed? And would Republican and Tea Party victories this November be proof of such a flaw? According to columnist Krisen Frey of Austria’s Der Standard, there is simply no escaping it: citizens in democracies have a habit of voting against their own interests. But unfortunately, Frey writes, democracy is still the best solution to the difficult task of governing.
For Der Standard, Krisen Frey writes in part:
Obama is being blamed for high unemployment and deficits. He is held responsible for both the problem and the remedial action that had to be taken, such as infrastructure spending, money for ailing states and an extension of unemployment benefits.
Any sensible economist would testify that unemployment would be much higher if Republican policies had prevailed. Without the bailouts of banks undertaken by Bush and the stimulus packages of Obama, the U.S. economy would probably have slipped into a depression like that of the 1930s.
Now, it’s difficult to demand public acclaim for a crisis that has been prevented. But any halfway-intelligent citizen should realize that the populist resistance of Tea Party leaders Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, as well as the opposition of a great majority of Democrats to Obama, is nonsensical in terms of economic policy. … But the millions who voted for Obama in 2008 and are now leaning toward candidates promising the exact opposite, can’t all be fanatical yokels.
The majority of Americans will probably vote against their own interests and those of their country in November. Unfortunately, that’s not unusual.
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