If the shoe fits his foot of clay . . .

History abounds with would-be saviors who promised peace and prosperity. But without exception, they failed to deliver. Have we learned the lesson that no human being or form of government can deliver us or bring salvation in an ultimate sense?
from http://www.vision.org/visionmedia/article.aspx?id=4162
[as are all the following quotes]

"We don’t just follow our leaders. We anxious and dependent followers often set them up via a process that can generate at least two kinds of toxic monsters: leaders who leap at the chance to play godlike roles, and leaders who eventually—because their followers keep kowtowing before them—come to believe that they really have the powers their anxious and needy followers want to ascribe to them."
—Harold J. Leavitt, Top Down

"The springs from which beliefs and myths flow to bestow a sacred nature on politics are unlikely to dry up in the near future, but it is still impossible to predict in what ways new civil and political religions could be formed or what the outcomes could be."
—Emilio Gentile, Politics as Religion

A false messiah is one who comes "in His name," a counterfeit who declares himself the anointed one . . . Such men claim to have the answers to human problems, to be able to deliver their people, to bring salvation. Yet as explained by the prophet Isaiah, it is only the true Messiah who can bring the kind of perfect government that humanity desperately needs. Isaiah wrote of Him in these terms: "The government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this" (Isaiah 9:6–7).

Amen, exit stage left, curtain down.