"He/She needs to be a good honest patriotic American"

The biggest risk to society is, when there is no gradual political progress and voters give up on existing (democratically chosen) political parties at once and vote for the new patriotic voice, whoever he/she is. In the Netherlands we had an experience like that a few years ago and the guy (Pim Fortuin) got a huge following within 6 months, simply because people were totally fed up with the existing political parties. He got killed by an idiot, but in the following elections his party got a lot of seats in parlement. So there you got a new, but important party, consisting of all kind of opportunistic and (above all unexperienced) one day luck seekers without any clear principles. Luckily for the Netherlands, in the absence of the charismatic and astute leader, this new party disintegrated as fast as it appeared, just like this happens all the time in any Banana Republic.

Reform is dangerous when it comes too fast, because there is no one who can control what really happens. Fascism can take over democracy, before you know it.

Change should be gradual, that's why it is so important that things move forwards all the time. IMO the existing two party system in the US has been detrimental to US democracy, since it did not allow any real public representation and change over the last 20-30 years. I believe Obama is now breaking up the static system that existed, luckily under democratic rule. His election was hardly needed to bring back some sense of democracy and movement to the US political process. By having a left wing democratic leader, Republicans are now finally forced to change their internal party dynamics, which means thinking forward instead of maintaining the status quo. I sincerely hope for the US, that new parties will also get a chance to enter the political process, but please let it be gradual.

Patriotism has never been a sound voice in history, whether it has been that of Hitler, Hirohito, Stalin, Mussolini, Pinochet or Chavez.