Casting Shadows

Note - I was going to keep this scenario in the Future History Wiki (click here for the original story outline), but since the future doesn't always stay 'in the future', I've decided to move it here and expand the scope of the story to include more nations, people and events in a fictionalized tale of future democracies and dictatorships.

Throughout much of history, the citizens, whether enfranchised or not, have held the most power in a nation, and despite the many falls and failures of governments and their leaders over the many millennia since civilization first arose, the people have kept a strong hold onto the direction their nation moves. When this stronghold wanes however, the results could've been disastrous; from Stalin to Hitler to Mao and the hundreds of other dictators that came to power through messages of hope and prosperity, always holding onto power through to most ruthless methods.

Today, the legacy of these men are tainted with forethought and progressivism, and it seems that the dictatorship of extremism is beginning to fall apart, and the roots of democracy and the rule of laws are being implanted in nations across the planet. From Sub-Saharan Africa to Central Asia and across Earth, millions continue to fight and struggle for their most basic human freedoms, and everyday a victory is struck somewhere.

Despite this however, humans, an often fickle and forgetful species, seem to fall back into the traps that we have seen throughout all of history; the strength of a strongman and the words of an influential speaker winning over crowds of men and women through either fear and love, almost always to bolster their own power. This scenario shall detail a future of faults and failures of the human race in regards to their rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, as well as the successes of democracy and freedom that occasionally spring forth, ensuring that the past will always be casting shadows on the future.