Join the new world

Hello everyone! I felt like it was about time for my first Erep article. I'm kind of new to this whole thing, and new to the game (two months on Monday!), so bare with me as I figure out how I want to do this, and as I find a style that works for this format.



For my first article, I'd like to discuss what I think makes a good political leader.

It's a topic that I don't have much experience with empirically, but that I can rationally theorize on. I have observed some things in this game in my short time here that fall into the "good leader" category, and some that definitely fall into the "bad" category.

There are two key things that I think make someone a good political leader. First is intelligence, and second is emotional maturity.



Intelligence is a tricky quality to evaluate in someone. Sure, there are people with astronomical IQs or with PhDs or who win a ton of money on Jeopardy. Then there are the people you meet in everyday life that, although they may work menial jobs, surprise you with the vast amount of wisdom they exude.

In my opinion, the sort of intelligence necessary to be a good leader in this game can best be defined as having a sense of creativity with ideas, and being able to make the connections necessary to implement those ideas. You must be able to see a situation and decipher the best ways to move forward. If a candidate steps up with ideas that, on the surface, seem to be good, but he or she has no viable way to proceed with these ideas, the populace is going to see through the facade and choose another candidate. We've seen this recently in the latest CP elections: catering to and caring about the opinions of the citizens is important in politics, but slowing down procedure in a way that keeps us stagnant as a nation is a completely irrational move. Political ideologies in this game MUST be realistic based on the limitations of the game itself. PoTUS candidates have one month to implement the things they wish to implement before they are up for reelection. If their ideas haven't made an impact on the nation, or have had a detrimental impact on our welfare, then they have not had a successful term and will most likely not regain their position to attempt again.



Emotional maturity is a somewhat easier trait to identify. It's true that there are people from vastly different age groups in this game. We have teenagers leading parties, young adults leading military units, and on up in equally or possibly more important positions. The distinguishing factor in all of these people is that they have at least some modicum of emotional maturity. They care about the game and their impact on the people they are involved with in the community, but not so much that their judgement is clouded by petty rivalries and acerbic trollfests. For the most part, we all want to make the game better for ourselves and each other, with a select few falling into a group that only wishes to deter the others from getting anything positive out of the game. We all know who falls into that last group: they work to mislead newbies into believing their party is merely a victim of the elitists, they attempt to overthrow other parties simply because those parties threaten their own lust for power, and they take in-game rivalries into the real world. Those aren't the kind of people you want in leadership positions. Those people will bring the nation down, not only within the ranks of our own people, but throughout the eWorld. The eUnited States comes with an unfortunate undercurrent of bitterness and the constant threat of one small group throwing a wrench into our plans.

We are working to fix this though. The government is currently on our side. Not the side of just the top 5 parties, but the side of the people. We are unified, for the most part, against that threat.

That threat will not succeed, because they do not have the necessary traits to make them politically successful. We do. And we will continue to beat this threat in each election because we are working together to create and follow through on viable ideas, and because we are aware of the fact that this game is just that: a game.