April 9th, 2000. That it is dependent on popular support is both its virtue and its vice.
Democracy reduces wisdom to impotence.
It leaves us all subject to the whims of those who are foolish or deficient in understanding, or who are just plainly in want of good sense. In democracy, demagogism reigns supreme. In ancient times, a demagogue was a leader of the people, a popular leader or orator who espoused the cause of the people against any other party in the state. When one of these kinds of people stand on a box they usually have a ready audience. 2 The difficulty, of course, is that demagogues, more often then not, achieve their heart's desire, power .