They are all the things the civics books tell us the good citizens should be: partisans but never zealots, respecters of the facts which attend each situation but never benders of those facts, uncomfortable in positions of leadership but rarely able to turn down a responsibility once it has been offered … or thrust upon them. They make the best leaders in a democracy because they are unlikely to fall in love with power. Quite the opposite.
~ from The Stand by Stephen King
I was looking at some of my Kindle highlights recently and came across this passage I highlighted when I re-read The Stand a few years ago. It struck me as particularly applicable to the last presidential election cycle in the US and to leadership in other parts of the world. This leads me to believe that not much has changed since King wrote this back in 1978. We have too many leaders across parties who have fallen in love with power, who are zealots, who disrespect and bend facts. But I suppose that’s been the state of politics from the beginning. Human nature is too easily corrupted and a small taste of power often leads to an addiction to having more of it.
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