If irony had a throne, John Kerry would be leaning on it, monologuing about democracy’s headaches at this week’s World Economic Forum’s Sustainable Development Impact Meetings. Here, the former Secretary of State and America’s first designated Climate Envoy complained about the modern “crisis” of governance—that awful, inconvenient reality where everyone has a voice. Apparently, too many people are ruining what used to be a good thing.
Kerry, cloistered in the comfort of the Davos bubble, reminded us just how difficult it is to govern when the masses actually get to speak their minds. “It’s really hard to govern today,” Kerry lamented, exuding the charm of someone frustrated that the rabble is talking back. The referees of truth, as he calls them, have been “eviscerated.” You know, those old-school arbiters—the gatekeepers of facts—who made sure the right people got to say the right things, ensuring a comfortable consensus among the elite.
Back then, if something was decided to be true, well, it stayed true.
But now, that pesky First Amendment and the democratization of information are making it all so much harder.
Hellbound and Down 