When I was a senior in high school there was a requirement that all students go through an American government / citizenship class. In this class we learned about the history of the US, the Constitution, and the general implementation of Democracy in our country. During the final month, we went through an exercise in civics that had a profound impact on my view of people and politics.
The exercise was a class election. After proportionally dividing the room into Democrat, Republican, and Independent parties - the Democrats had a numbers advantage of 3 or 4 people and the Independents probably had that number total - the assignment was for each party to choose a candidate who would make a speech on "election day" and a secret ballot vote would be held afterward to determine the winner. As things turned out, I was assigned to the Republican Party and ended up attaining the party's nomination for President.
I have to say that I was a little cynical about the whole thing....
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