At times there is a general consensus of sentiment, a definite trend in favor of “progressive legislation” or a desire for a “return to normalcy.” But even then only exceptional candidates get by on any basis of personal responsibility to the electorate.
Dewey discusses the complexities of electoral politics and the role of personal responsibility.
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But the wingèd words of conversation in immediate intercourse have a vital import lacking in the fixed and frozen words of written speech.
That and that only gives reality to public opinion.
Publication is partial and the public which results is partially informed and formed until the meanings it purveys pass from mouth to mouth.
So to the patent objection that the state is a very modern institution, it is replied that while modernity is a property of those structures which go by the name of states, yet all history, or almost all, records the exercise of analogous…