In conversation with Mint Press News, Riedl compared the rise of Francis to that of President Barack Obama. Both entered office on the hype of hope, with raised expectations that they will be able to break the bureaucracy and corruption of the governments they have been chosen to reform. In the case of Obama, open idealism crashed violently with an entrenched bureaucracy, a lack of practical understanding on how to initiate his reforms or how to run a large organization, and the slow realization that compromise is impossible if the opposition’s platform is “one-party rule.”