It's Not Working So Change It

[poliphilo]

Our next prime minister is shortly to be chosen by the tiny percentage of the population who are paid-up members of a deeply unpopular political party. It's an electorate of people who have effectively purchased their right to vote. Most of the country, faced with the choice of Candidate A and Candidate B, would almost certainly go, "Neither of the above."

If this is an example of how politics is conducted in a so-called democracy.... Well, complete that sentence however the spirit moves..

Politics across the globe is so disfunctional.

But it always have been.

So don't go into a decline about it. Take heart. The difference between now and then is that the disfunction is more evident than ever before. Isn't that what Trump is for- to display the disfunction in all its infantile glory, uncensored, without any overlay of pretended sophistication?

And the more we're aware of the disfunction the more we'll be motivated to change it.

Comments

[oakmouse]

You have to PAY to be a member of a political party in Britain? Or were you speaking metaphorically?

The sad thing is that Trump isn't the most dysfunctional president the US has ever had; he's just the most heavily publicized of the dysfunctional brigade. Back in the day the press didn't get in half the licks they do now. Heck, not a quarter of the licks. I mean, I well remember Nixon, and he was fully as bad as Trump. He just didn't get as much airtime and headline ink because things weren't done that way 45 years ago.

[poliphilo]

No metaphor. You have to pay to be a member of a British political party.

I remember Nixon too. He was frightful. And, as you say, it was easier to keep the frightfulness hidden back then.

[oakmouse]

(Sorry I'm late responding; I was offline yesterday.)

Wow. I had no idea. Here, you don't have to pay, but if you join a party they drive you to drink with begging phone calls and mailers asking for donations.

So do people who can't afford the fees or who choose not to affiliate with a party have limited voting rights? I gather they can vote on things like the Brexit referendum, but not on the selection of a party leader or a party candidate.

JFK was pretty awful too, in spite of his clean-cut good boy image. With today's media, he wouldn't have stood a chance.

[poliphilo]

If you're not a paid up member of a political party you can't influence what goes on inside that party. And so most of us get no say in who gets to be the next leader of the Conservative Party- and- as it happens (because the Conservatives are in power)- the next Prime Minister.

Our hands are pretty much tied until the next General Election which- barring crises- is two years away.

[oakmouse]

Gotcha. So it's kind of like most American states, except that we don't have to pay to be members of a party, we just have to enroll.