Historian Barbara Fields On Frustration with Congress and Reality

"The criticism of Congress that says, in essence, Congress has a way of making situations complicated, of making it harder to do things of-- of making it impossible to move in a streamlined fashion. This is a way of saying that democracy is a pain in the neck, which, of course, it is. And that style of criticism of Congress is not so much a criticism of the individuals who are there now, many of whom deserve even more criticism than they have received so much as it is a criticism of the whole idea of a government by as well as for the people. And that is a criticism of democracy. I wonder whether the ideal of democracy lives in a real sense in our country today."

- Historian Barbara Fields from Columbia University in Ken Burns' documentary, Congress

Dictatorship remains alluring even to people who should know better because it is so much less complicated than democracy — with all its debates and divisions. But reality, too, is complicated. The desire for a strong leader stems from fantasizing that reality could be as simple as our opinions of it. Democracy is messy, contentious, and frustrating in no small part because reality is.