When I got into this campaign I had no idea it was so, well, strange. See, there’s these two parallel universes: The first is the one we see, the one where everyone is working together and getting along. The second lies just under the first running in parallel, and there everyone is stabbing each other in the back and being childish.
Someone told me that I should have known and that this is the way the game is played. I responded by saying, ‘no, this is the way we allow the game to be played but it doesn’t have to be this way’. I went on to explain that it’s the armchair politicians, the people in every town who throw their weight around controlling blocks of votes for this promise or that assurance from a candidate and that in the end they’re doing nothing but insulting our democracy.
Why? Well, I added up all the possible promised blocks of votes and it turns out – at best – they represent about 15% of the voters. That’s right: the special interest groups and the armchair politicians and the folk who are in this only for the [insert turgid reference here] added together leave the remaining %85 of the voters unrepresented. But, for such a small group, they sure are organized! And Loud. And they have money.
But when a candidate is elected because the Left-Handed block supported them for the promise of more Left Handed legislation and the candidate is also backed by the Right Handed block for the same reason… well, when they get elected what are they going to do? Support measures that may be good for the other 85% of the voters and risk losing the Left and Right Handed voters next time around? Not on your life.
The 85% see this and get angry, as they should. They were sold a bill of goods (that they’d be represented) that turned out to be untrue and at the next election they… follow the advice of the blocks again only to find out they’ve been ripped off again. Rinse. Lather. Repeat.
Popularity: unranked [?]
