Is my vote a game to you?

Politics – Is there a more polarising subject?

The word democracy comes from an amalgamation of the Greek words, ‘demos’, essentially meaning ‘people’, and ‘kratos’, which can be translated to ‘power’.

Power to the people!

Athens is generally accepted to have housed the first governmental democracy in 508 – 507 BC, although it is thought to have existed in other Greek city states prior to this, and perhaps a result of having the strongest surviving records, can celebrate this attribution.

This is Democracy Manifest!

Politics, why is it so black and white – or rather, red and blue?

Let’s take my country, Britain.

Two opposing sides battle for domination.
The parties sit, facing each other on either side of the House of Commons chamber.

Each party leader takes turns at spitting poison darts at the other. Eton College is practically an incubator for breeding future Tory Prime Ministers, growing the spawn of the rich and influential few, in vitro. A clear extension of public school debating society, its quite apparent it’s been difficult for some statesman to remove the inane schoolyard taunts and insults, as members of parliament jeer from the back benches. The triviality embedded, with its deep roots, is drearily evident, and discernibly juvenile.

Take this, for example – an image uploaded on the 6th September 2019, to official Conservative Party social media accounts, on all major platforms, in the lead up to the general election;

How low can you get – is this what politics has become?

Let’s get one thing straight, I am not a member of a party. This isn’t supposed to be a Tory bashing post – I am not a raging lefty. I make my decision to vote for any party, based on the merit of the manifesto, and my belief in the individuals assembled in their government, especially the leader, being able to deliver on the key points. I identify what I feel strongest about, and whichever party represents my interests best, gets my vote. I have no allegiances. I am open to be persuaded. I truly hope that one can elicit some kind of response in me, and connect on a fundamental level. I’ll wait, I’m patient.

I have, however, only ever voted Conservative, thus far. My views are constantly evolving. I am not the same person as I was ten years ago, when I first got the vote. I was certainly in part, playing devils advocate, as all of my best friends were raging lefties. If everyone agrees on everything, life becomes a bit beige. I have been out of the country for most of the last five years, including for the last election, and opted to abstain. Being away from everyone and everything I have grown up with, and been influenced by, has let my true thoughts and feelings develop organically, outside. Being in another country adds to the degree of separation. It even makes you question the way you see yourself. Maybe, I am a raging lefty?

However, this is the party I voted for in the past, which made me beg the question too;

In what way does this represent me?

The short answer: it doesn’t.

Often, I have watched and listened as the vanguard we entrust to shape the society we live, resort to personal attacks, in lieu of any substance, or focus on policy matter. How do you separate this diseased culture of combative politics from the greater organism?

It’s practically sport – or is it just a game – my vote isn’t part of a game – is it?

If the intended end result is the betterment of the country, it’s people, its economy, and in upholding its values, then, aren’t we all on the same team?

But, there’s the problem, you may point
out – our values are different – thats precisely why we have different parties.
Yet, are they really that different? Now, more than ever, I believe we have a more transparent idea of what a country sentimentalises at its core.

Today, whether the party swings left or right on the political spectrum, it’s adheres crucially to different shades of liberalism – economic, social, cultural and political.

I see it as less of a line, from left to right, and more of a circle, the further you go, the more extreme it becomes, the more they begin to look like the other again, until they meet.

Ideologically, the Conservative Party believes in the freedom of the market. The Labour Party, intrinsically, most vehemently in the freedom of the worker. Both believe in freedom. Both believe in democracy. On paper, perhaps rather dubiously, both believe in equality and the rights of its citizens.

It’s like they are making an omelette, agree on the ingredients, and are now arguing about how much salt and pepper to use. Instead of working together to make this the best omelette possible, one was accused of holding the whisk wrong, whilst retorting that the other wore their apron contemptibly.

We, the diners, stand outside hungry, staring through the window in disbelief at the disorderly spectacle. I suppose the real problem materialises when somebody doesn’t like omelettes.

How many revolutions have started over food shortages?

Most of us think our ideals, opinions and decisions are our own.

Yet, we have two biological parents that we inherent genetic characteristics from. The overwhelming majority has at least one who raises us, who is in our life consistently, biological or not. We inherit some of their traits too, inborn or learned. Speech, for example. Our accent is a direct result of our environment. We tend to mimic those around us – it’s a part of how we cooperate and survive.

We are born with individual life circumstances. Isn’t our family structure – how many parents, if any, are present, their job and how much they earn, as well the area we live, among others (the list is extensive), all social economic factors that contribute to predestined political biases?

It’s all a bit tribal. We’ve been scared of the tribe on the other side of the valley, since time immemorial. Now, we just throw verbal spears – mostly.

It can’t be as simple as rich vs poor, can it?

We’re all born equal is the biggest lie I uncovered, since that fat bloke stopped sliding down my chimney.

Don’t believe everything they tell you.

A big lie is a propaganda technique, where a politician or political institution tells a lie so big, that most people believe it must be true.

Adolf Hitler was the first to define the technique in Mein Kampf;

“It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.”

More recently, current United States
President Joe Biden, characterised the then President Donald Trumps claims, of massive election fraud in an attempt to overturn his loss in the 2020 US presidential election, as “the big lie”.

On the 6th of January 2021, it culminated in the storming of the United States Capitol building by a mob of Trump supporters, enflamed by a call to action during a rally, from the then President Donald Trump.

More than 140 people were injured and 5 died, as a result of the violence.

I’m sick of the power politics.

In the age of the long peace, when we’ve never experienced such a time of reduced violence and greater global cooperation, with the rise of Trump, Brexit and nationalism across The West, its glaring, we still have a way to go.

Secularism is having a revival.

Britain went to the nuthouse with the Brexit referendum result. The chaos it provoked, the rut we became entrenched in, as we battered ourselves black and blue, became more tedious than tragic. We managed to make resounding fools of ourselves internationally, repeatedly, as the infighting raged on at home. When we couldn’t even work together within our own government, how on Earth, were we suppose to come to terms with the European Union and its 27 other member states?

As it droned on in the press too – sensationally pitting us, the plebeians, against one another for monetary gain, it got to the point that nothing really mattered to me anymore.

All the rhetoric, posturing and fluffing of feathers had become a uninspiring display of meaningless motions, akin to an elitist chicken dance – an easy to replicate, uncoordinated and classless foray, where everyone moves in much the same way, jigged to a utterly dreadful tune.

The media is there, all the while, scaring people into an early grave, as they pump fear and doom relentlessly through every medium they have at their disposal, until the people are so washed out and void of any true autonomy, that their ability to put rational thought into play and separate the bullshit from their physical lives, in front them, dissipates.

No, it’s not a game.

It is all just an elaborate social experiment, that hasn’t come to a final conclusion and never will.

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What is life without community? I would love to connect with other nicecissists out there. Seeing as you’ve got this far, that’s probably you! Reach out, drop me a message and let me know what you think in the comments, and of course, give me a follow for more – nice!