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Anyone who wants to take on the US government would be better off if they didn't have a visible figurehead. Americans need to personalize the enemy. It's one r
by gamble 16y ago
Anyone who wants to take on the US government would be better off if they didn't have a visible figurehead.
Americans need to personalize the enemy. It's one reason China is so confounding - Americans simply have no idea who's in charge there, and hating 'the Chinese' as a nation has more than a whiff of bigotry... yet it's hard to get worked up about nebulous concepts like 'the Communist party'. Americans need their Hitler or Tojo, Ayatollah Khomeini, Saddam, Ahmadinejad, or Bin Laden.
- iskander 16y agos/Americans/people
- gamble 16y agoI'm not sure I'd agree. It's a continuum, certainly, but even compared to other western nations contemporary Americans are unusually individualistic and disinclined to see people as primarily defined by group affiliations like ethnicity, nationality, ideology, etc, since those elements are muted in American society compared to many other countries.
- mcantelon 16y agoA figurehead is a target, yes, but also inspires people more than an amorphous organization.