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| Coming soon to a garden near here (High today, ZERO) |
The basic tenet of a recent Facebook
post was that since many Albertans were losing their jobs, the
premier of the province—Rachel Notley—should lose hers. A silly
syllogism if there ever was one, but expressive of the frustration
many Albertans experienced when they woke up to realize that a social
democratic government had been elected . . . by them.
The post drew responses in the
hundreds, some applauding the suggestion and some exuding unbridled
hostility and rage: “we should band together to turf the b***h
out!” Most however, were rebukes; how can you lay the economic
problems of Alberta on Notley when the root lies in Saudi Arabia and
the downturn was well underway before we ousted the Conservatives?
Think, people, think!
But logic and fair judgments don’t
dominate discourse in a democracy based on a party system. Makes you
wonder if we wouldn’t be better off under a theocracy or a
dictatorship; under such governance people might be united . . . if
only by their hatred for the dictator. As it is, we are
systematically encouraged by our electoral system to like or dislike
each other according to predispositions toward anything and anyone that isn't us,
relatively stable prejudices nurtured over years.
“Government by the people, for the
people” can’t simply be assumed to be all good, all of the time.
How we judge party A or B seems to
depend much more on our attitude toward their brand than it does on
their actions when in power. It makes me wonder why in this country
anyone would aspire to leadership: we generally elect our governments
with fewer than 50% of the vote which means that a party assuming
power must realize that more than half the population will chastise
and oppose them no matter how pristine their motives. We effectively
elect—most of the time—a government we don’t want, as long as
majority rules is how we
decide stuff.
I’m certainly
not the first to say this, but it’s becoming clearer that what we
have learned to like or love—and what we have learned to dislike or
hate—plays a far greater role in our political choices than our
thoughtful judgment ever has. We’re most attuned to hearing any
sliver of evidence supporting our loyalties, castigating our
adversaries.
Tabloids prey on
this tendency in us. They do best when they pick a side and hammer
away at the “other side” with mixtures of information and
misinformation . . . and their followers naturally lap it up. Take
Fox News as an example.
It’s
one good reason for revising our democracy. Proportional
representation means that no matter how we vote, our vote affects the
outcome. True, this often results in a minority government, but
minority governments only work if the parties cooperate, if the
government is vulnerable to opposing opinions and interests.
Cumbersome as such a change might be at first, the habits of
consultation and cooperation could be given some hope of developing
in time.
What
we endanger under the current system is the consciousness of our
unity under the overarching goal that
is the reason for government in the first place,
namely that all citizens should enjoy their short lives: well fed,
well sheltered, well educated and in peace and harmony with their
neighbours.
Rachel
Notley should not be forced to resign; the hostility she faces is a
consequence of the fact that our electoral system so starkly focuses
on the zero-sum, winners and losers game paradigm.
It
shouldn’t have to be like this.
