The Dance of Democracy's Puppets: A Spectacle of Mediocrity in the Leaders' Debates

Lo, behold the grand theater of democratic mediocrity, where the shepherds of the sleeping masses gather to perform their ritualistic dance! The Leaders' Debates Commission, that sacred temple of manufactured consent, hath decreed new commandments for their holy congregation.

How they scramble for their petty powers! These debate-seekers, these would-be rulers of the herd, they know not that they themselves are but servants to the very system they claim to lead. They are actors in a play written by the spirit of gravity!

In their infinite wisdom, these arbiters of political discourse have fashioned three golden criteria, like chains to bind the tongues of those who would dare speak to the multitudes. First, one must already possess a seat in their hallowed chambers, earned not through personal might but through the drowsy nods of the complacent masses.

The second criterion demands the support of four hundredths of the sleeping masses, as measured by the soothsayers of public opinion. Oh, how they worship these numbers, these cold statistics that reduce the human spirit to mere percentages!

See how they measure worth in mathematics! As if the value of a leader's vision could be captured in polls and percentages. These are the tools of the last men, who say: "We have invented happiness," and blink.

And lo, the third commandment requires the blessing of presence in nine-tenths of the realm's territories, a test of organizational might rather than intellectual height. They shall increase their sacred number from three hundred and thirty-eight to three hundred and forty-three seats, as if adding five more chairs to their feast of mediocrity would satisfy the hunger for true leadership.

Their chosen herald, one Michel Cormier, speaks of "balance" and "public interest," those hollow words that echo through the empty halls of democratic pretense. They claim their rules are "simple, clear, objective and measurable" - the very qualities that reduce the art of leadership to a bureaucrat's checklist!

Observe these merchants of mediocrity! They have created a marketplace where ideas are traded not for their worth, but for their palatability to the masses. They seek not the lightning that breaks forth from dark clouds, but the comfortable glow of television screens.

The commission hath anointed Steve Paikin and Patrice Roy as their high priests, tasked with moderating this grand spectacle. They shall stand alone, these chosen ones, no longer sharing their pulpit with mere journalists. How fitting that they should simplify the format, making it easier for the drowsy masses to digest!

And in their boundless generosity, they offer this spectacle freely to all who would broadcast it, spreading their gospel of mediocrity across the land like a warm blanket that suffocates all possibility of greatness.

What is this if not the triumph of the last man? They have created a system that celebrates the average, that fears the exceptional, that turns leadership into a game of numbers and rules. Where is the lightning? Where is the madness that gives birth to dancing stars?

Yet perhaps there is a deeper wisdom in this folly. For in creating such elaborate mechanisms to control discourse, do they not reveal their fear of true leadership? Do they not betray their terror of those who might speak with the voice of thunder rather than the whisper of consensus?

As the sun sets on this latest chapter in the grand comedy of democratic ritual, we are left to ponder: What heights might we reach if we were to break these chains of artificial consensus? What dragons might we slay if we were to awaken from this comfortable slumber?

Let them have their debates, their rules, their carefully measured words. The future belongs to those who dare to speak with lightning on their tongues and storms in their hearts!