“Yet democracies, if we are to judge by the oldest and most powerful of them, have made a mystery out of public opinion. There have been skilled organizers of opinion who understood the mystery well enough to create majorities on election day. But these organziers have been regarded by political science as low fellows or as >>problems,<< not as possessors of the most effective knowledge there was on how to create and operate public opinion. The tendency of the people who have voiced the ideas of democracy, even when they have not managed its action, the tendency of students, orators, editors, has been to look upon Public Opinion as men in other societies looked upon the uncanny forces to which they acribed the last word in the direction of events.”
(Walter Lippmann, Journalist und Berater von Präsident Wilson – Public Opinion, 1922)
Lippmann war konservativ und straffer Anti-Kommunist. Ich habe seine Position hier dargestellt, um jemanden zu Wort kommen zu lassen, der unverdächtig deutlich macht, was hinter der Cover-Story von “Demokratie” steht.