Descending Darkness

The general atmosphere of gloom has finally caught up with the Big Nose Club (an exclusive club with a membership set at 3, whose founding members are Vivian, Michael and Raheny_Eye, set up in 1993, and built around our shared passion for Guinness and quality conversations... and our respective big nasal appendages - hence the unofficial name)

You can see here the newly delivered last round of fresh pints before getting kicked out of Mulligan's.

We were just reaching a gloomy conclusion to the evening, predicting an en masse return of dictatorships in the old sclerosis-stricken democracies of our "western" world.
We were looking at the human-mid to human-long term there (i.e. my lifetime or my kids' lifetime), with the comfortable detachment afforded by a few creamy ones. We were soaring above the nitty gritty of daily life and looking at things from a more globally... ahem... inebriated perspective.

Hear me out: the abstention levels in elections around the world are unprecedented. There is no perceived feeling of true leadership from the muppets currently heading a lot of democratically elected governments.
What makes a president/prime minister is a simple formula: close analysis of opinion polls + funding of the PR machine. More than ever, nothing of substance is ever formulated. There are no ideas, ideals, principles or personal beliefs expressed. The whole charade is fooling less and less people and there is a general feeling of lassitude for the electorates around the world.
The idea of one strong persona shaking up the body politic and assuming full control over a nation's destiny is bond to appeal to a growing number of people.

In other words, the context is ripe for the next Hitler or Pol Pot. Perhaps even the next Lady Maggie. At home. Not a few convenient time zones away...

Nothing lasts for ever. Not even democracies.

Especially not democracies.

I'd better go back to my bucket of strong sweet tea and happier thoughts. Now, where is that financial report I'm supposed to be working on?