Obama has a Hamlet problem

The national myth of the United States is that everyone is equal or should be treated equally.  But we don’t act on it.  Inequality is ubiquitous.  President Obama ran on a platform of equality, and the health care reform legislation was supposed to reduce inequality by providing affordable health care for all.  In order to want to run a country that is as deeply conflicted, as huge, as powerful, and as complicated as America is, one would have to be a little bit insane. And in order to be elected, that person would have to spend the greater portion of two years attempting to appeal to the majority of the nation, and the better portion of one’s life positioning oneself to have that much power. Appealing to everyone is impossible because the populace has such opposing views that pleasing some will inevitably one thing annoy others.  Hence, Obama has a Hamlet problem:  he must be crazy, and he doesn’t realize it.  Perhaps worse, he’ll have to compromise many of his most fundamental values.  Anyone who is trying to exert power in such a large nation cannot stay rigidly true to his or her own values; the leader will have to bend to conform to the wishes and views of others.  The leader must be radical enough to catch the attention of the public but not so radical that people will lose confidence in the leader.

One who aspires to leadership over a large number of people has to have enough of an ego to say and to believe that he is impressive, and important enough to run the “greatest country.”  Having that ego and then attempting to step back to separate oneself and focus only on what would be for the greater good of the country, not the greater good of one’s reputation, becomes very difficult.

We all have a responsibility to think about government and to try to make a difference.  In a country of 250 million people, the action of any individual citizen is just a drop in the ocean.  It’s futile for any one person to try to change the government.  But if everyone believes that it’s futile, no one will do anything, and democracy will not work.  Another problem is that some of the electorate are crazy.  The efforts of the crazy people are what brought the government to a standstill lately.  If you’re smart and think things through, the actions of the citizenry to control those are power are good.  But when silly, ignorant, or highly emotional people try to govern, or to control those who govern, they end up having a childish argument, which is what we are seeing in government now, and things go boom.