Politics has always been a very interesting subject in any society. Politics brings power, power brings money, money brings prestige, prestige brings money, money brings power and in this way cycle continues. This cycle , at its every stage attracts and adds new entrants. New people are attracted. They wish to be part of the cycle, if not as a leader, at least as a follower. Follower gets psychological satisfaction. They feel they are part of bigger cycle. They have illusion that because of them there is a leadership. They have illusion leaders exist because leaders have followers . Of course there is not so strict corollary. Still they enjoy illusion. Some of such people who consider themselves followers succeed in attaching themselves with leaders and start an earning career as middle men. Really a profession which doesn't demand any formal qualification. Only qualification needed is the quality of being tail of leaders. This tail role help them in thugging common people and in this way they earn. We in our language call them NETA KA DALAL.
Some think they have strong ideological bases ( they call their bias as bases) and so they follow political group ideologically. A real joke with most of the followers! Because most followers change side when leaders they follow lose power. Ideological bases(biases) exist till pay. Politics throughout the democratic nations is a lucrative business option. Employed or not employed, in every case politics pay , politics of power pay. Of course some have genuinely political biases which withstand time. But number is fewer. In the pre democracy era caste, race, loylity etc were the biases determining political aligience. In democratic era field is open, anyone can compete , at least theoretically. But political nobility still exists. This is omnipresent, from farm to factory, from folks to bureaucracy.
And what's about leadership itself? Most of the time most are worthless. As the quality of education becomes more and more improved, quality of leadership becomes more and more detoriated. Today there are so many people who explicitly know what qualities a leader should bear. But fact is also that most leaders are devoid of such qualities and irony of the fact is that people wilfully chose incompetent leaders.
But why people chose mostly incompetent leaders? In the age of conflicts, in which we live today all over the world DEMOCRACY is being dominated by FACTIONOCRACY and FICTIONOCRACY. People don't see themselves as members of larger society. One group is in conflict with others. Resources are abundant , their distribution makes them scarce for certain groups. Factions grow, and grow more. One faction is in conflict with others to capture larger share of resources, both tangible and intangible resources. So caste groups are reflected in political alliances, religion plays as factions and political groups woo particular religions' followers to capture resources. So communism or secularism are being as factions competing for unequal resources. Similar is the case with black and white colour politics. Compassion, empathy, creativity, innovation, accountability like beautiful words which define leadership qualities exist for seminars and webinars. They are for teachers and students and not for followers/voters and leaders. That's why a person can deliver a lengthy lecture or write meticulously on qualities of a leader but when the same person live rhe role of a voter or follower he/ she seldom go for a leader for such qualities. So the leaders naturally don't spend time to refine themselves as per the theoretical virtues and in reality they thrive on FACTIONISM. Now the question arises who can succeed most? Of course those who have more charismatic quality to monetize the factions . Fictions are woven around charisma. And FICTIONISM determines leaders' (of factions) strength and success. Followers who live in the pseudo world of political bases(biases) contribute in this FACTIONOCRACY and FICTIONOCRACY. They hope they will get slices . Of course some do get and rest remain live on expectations. This is today's democracy which we are living.