'How the political establishment sponsor the protests they want, suppress the ones they don't, and tread carefully when their clients go off-message'

"Western liberal democracies cultivate a range of fictions about their nature and function. In the myths they tell about themselves, the people are sovereign and politicians merely enact their wishes. In reality, and as in all political systems democratic or otherwise, it is the leaders who exercise power and who strive to herd the people in convenient directions. Democracy imposes various constraints on their actions, but does not meaningfully hinder the unilateral decisions of the establishment. To disguise these uncomfortable truths, democracies eagerly engage in various democratic liturgies, among them the popular protest. Leaders prefer protests which favour their prior political programme, and they sponsor these wherever possible, and with as much publicity as possible, to draw attention away from those less convenient demonstrations that they find it necessary to marginalise or even violently suppress."

~ Eugyppius, from their post 'How the political establishment sponsor the protests they want, suppress the ones they don't, and tread carefully when their clients go off-message'