It’s fairly easy to gravitate towards promises that sound like your political perspective – but does the rhetoric deliver? Are your politicians really representing you?
I’m an older left-leaning Canadian but what I’m writing here goes beyond my political affiliations and beyond Canadian politics.
With the rise of social media and online versions of mainstream and alt news, most people are increasingly inundated with information. Some of it is good. A lot of it is fake, unreliable, sensationalized and biased.
Recently, Pierre Poilievre was elected to be the leader of the Canadian Conservative party. To me, he has achieved his popularity by slandering and improperly blaming the current government and Justin Trudeau – the current Prime Minister. Does he really believe what he says? I don’t think so. I think it’s a game plan.
What I see in political strategy is:
- if you have something to say you say it (rare these days)
- if you have nothing to say you find issues to work people up with. In the last 30 years this has revolved around abortion, LGBTQ+ rights and taxes. Add in a hefty dose of ‘Make – country of your choice – Great or Free – Again’ for a positive note.
- If you want to divert attention away from your agenda because you are afraid citizens won’t vote for you with the plans you have, you blame the other guy and you campaign on a fake populist vote.
I’m sick of it really. I think the foundation of today’s politics is based on money and big corporate interests. And that is not often synonymous with my interests or yours if you are not a big corporation.
What is more concerning to me is the current trend for political campaigns that are based on #3: deception.
It should be against the law in Canada (and elsewhere) for political candidates to lie or hide their agendas from voters. It makes a complete mockery of the concept of voting. What’s the point? It’s not real voting anymore. It’s putting your X on a piece of paper and hoping that the person you’ve voted for will deliver what you need and want. And then, when they don’t deliver, oh well… there is zero accountability.
I’ve heard a lot about my rights and freedom lately. I don’t care about the ill-defined rights of the trucker convoy and protesters – most of it is meaningless. But my/our rights and my/our freedoms are very important to me.
When we talk about voter reform what I think we need is transparency and accountability. It should be law. Anything less is really just dictatorship dressed up to look like democracy.
Photo credit: Polina Kovaleva, Pexels