How the Tea Party Will Die

Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) -- All together now: We like democracybecause ... why? The pathologies of the U.S. version are soobvious in the aftermath of the latest averted crisis that weneed to ask ourselves whether it’s worth it -- and why electoraldemocracy hasn’t self-destructed before. Should Tunisians orEgyptians opt for the Chinese model, where rational autocratsmay restrict rights, but no one threatens to blow up worldmarkets in the name of an 18th-century tax protest?

There is an answer: Democracy is self-correcting, at leastwhere it works. The key to the process is a version of supplyand demand. When a politician acts in a way that doesn’t servethe voters’ interests or desires, demand for that person’sservices should decline. Another candidate who fills the demandwill get elected.