attention and accolades, such as would be found among persons possessed of narcissistic tendencies, morph and become malignant, they become solipsistic, causing the tyrant to adopt a posture of invincibility that demands the world conform to his personal worldview. Engaging the levers of government to do his bidding domestically and internationally, this type of tyrant creates a situation within which individual freedom and the creativity that comes to express such is no longer possible because activities of all individuals must focus on nothing more than advancing the personal beliefs and desires of the tyrant. Again, he must go.
And whereas, one would normally expect opposition in face of such consolidation of power, no true opposition seems to exist. Members of the minority party, people who normally would form the opposition, are all too vested in the system to provide a counterbalance. This is because they owe their position to the fact they play by the rules of an older game, which means rising through the ranks by supporting senior members and biding their time until they rise to hold positions of power themselves. Such is the currency they hope to gain, which they can use to trade for more powerful positions on committees or within the party itself, positions that, when accumulated across time, ensure they will have more influence at the end of the day. But the rules of the game have changed: and each choice now made, or relationship now established, increasingly binds them to personal needs and desires rather than the best interests of the country.
And here is where the opposition comes to take on the same character as the tyrant. There is no tie that binds those in the opposition to a certain belief or ideology, not even an allegiance to their constituency and/or constituent need. Being in the opposition serves only as a cloak within which they can wrap and hide their desire to advance a personal agenda involving both wealth and power, a magical cloak that transforms positions held and the modest salary of $174,000 given into tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars gained through personal stock trades individually, and some 13,324 stock trades totaling $636 million collectively, across the last year,13 a cloak which they open only to greet like-minded members of the ruling elite, after which they join hands and create a circle amongst themselves, a circle of open cloaks that encase them all in what becomes nothing more than a closed echo chamber within which support for the sentiments of the rich and powerful – the corporate class – bounce off one another in affirmation of their common and aligned desires. Quite the opposite of the space which opens before men seeking the real conversations that test and temper individual opinion, a space that expands with ever more participants, creating the opportunity through which truth may blaze forth for all to see, as our ancient Greek counterparts once proposed happened when men and women join in conversations involving the entire community.
And seeing such, acknowledging such, can we not see how this becomes the very foundation upon which the tyrant mocks his opposition? He knows, better than they, how alike they are. And is it not also the foundation for the seeming incapacity of the minority party to bring forth any semblance of real opposition? They know, better than we, how the snare entraps them.
Thus, the irony. Protecting their flank in anticipation of one-day regaining power, the minority party further diminishes the prospect of any real change happening outside of the traditional party structure as all becomes nothing more than performance art through which they entertain their base rather than govern the country. If only they would put personal interests and nuances of disagreement aside to join with the multiple other parties who also oppose the tyrant, they would reveal in the end that which should be obvious: the tyrant is but one supported by the few. But here again, not being individuals interested in the betterment of their people, they cannot sublimate their desires for the
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