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My heart goes out to the people of Romania. They've been on a neverending wheel of this sort of thing for decades, unless I'm misunderstanding.
Nope, you're very much on target. The best one I can remember, Constantinescu, was good because he literally didn't do anything, either bad or good. He even said at the end of his presidency that the system had defeated him.
Our government and political scene in general is now essentially a web of nepotism and private business interests, which runs on corruption. I swear, it's like nobody does shit to you as long as you don't steal from the big ones. Otherwise, nobody really gives a crap...
Or you get straight-up weirdos, instead! Vadim Tudor deserved to be seen globally, we could've sold him as The Local Nutjob!
It's a global experience. We either learn from our mistakes or don't, address them fully or halfway or make the barest attempts, then throw up our hands in disgust, and faciaism, authoritarianism happens again. That's why we, imo, need to focus on ourselves, our lessons, our integrity, clearly, consistently, diligently doing the work to heal ourselves, and model for those around, behind us it can be done, so others are inspired to also learn and apply appropriate lessons. Stopgap measures of course will be implemented or an ungood anarchy or other system will continue to arise, but we simply can not improve as long as we continue to allow social systems to rob us of the time, energy, effort, rest and recreation to do so. Yes sometimes we will have to engage more, longer, harder to bring forth some sort of harvest, but limits can and should be recognized. A human laid up or dead due to health issues, physical, mental or otherwise isn't doing anything for any reason, for anyone.
Something has to give, though... I feel we're stuck between two fronts moving in opposite directions, one being the continued degradation of our social world, and the other being the accumulated and now snowballing fatigue brought about by said degradation, and they're just grinding us down while we're trying to get a grip.
We've reached the point where hiding away in the backyard for a bit is too little to regain a significant enough portion of that energy debt, and to add to that, our backyards have now kinda' been flooded with that bullshit which was still relatively manageable a decade ago. That applies even to those who are actively in denial, maybe even more than to those who at least look it in the eye, because mirror neurons are still a thing - this fatigue is a resonant frequency and we inevitably pick the stress up from everyone else around us, whether we want to or not. I've lived through a recession and I don't remember people being this run down back then (no, we weren't particularly rich, that belt was tightened up something fierce).
We're cascading, everything's cascading, and it'll take all of us with it if we just let it happen. Something has to give.
If you'll forgive another not/religious expression, the pointing finger is not the moon. Please allow me to point again, after that maybe unplug for a while, sit in silence or walk barefoot in the grass, hug a tree, weather conducive. Sometimes we have to distance ourselves from the moon to see it:
https://kbin.earth/m/[email protected]/t/1186175/-/comment/6122625
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave
Eta: or this can happen: https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/M/Masahide/Barnsburntdo/index.html