Elections, Politics, and Choice

The recent federal election elicited a variety of interpretations, emotions, and speculation. As with each election in Canada, Canadians view the victory and loss through a variegated lens of the political spectrum, demographic, region, culture, economics, and a myriad of other focussed vantage points. Most Canadians, however, have one common perspective when viewing an election, politics, and the choices presented by the political parties: a view from an outsider without any influence or position within the political or electoral system. 

When Canadians go to the polls, they are determining their choice of political party. As Ronald Landes stated in his book, Canadian Polity, “elections determine which party will control the government, and thus as a consequence, who will decide the allocation of scarce resources…[and] who receive benefits of government and which sectors of society bear the costs of these allocations”. Some argue that elections reflect the past rather than any a vision for the future. Dickerson and Flanagan in their Introduction to Government:  Instead of hope or fear, elections are much more like a postmortem inquest than a decision about the future. In other words, elections are not so much about the future but an evaluation of the past. 

Each of these positions offer insight into the electoral process from the past, present, and future. Elections are an assessment of the governing party’s decisions on allocation and benefits of resources within society, especially, regional allocation and benefits. They are also a bellwether on anticipation of future of policy options and the allocation of resources and those that will benefit from these decisions. Although the electorate may not examine the choices offered in the election based on inquiry, they choose the political party that will reflect their values and priorities in the party platform or, at least, the rhetoric of the political party. In simple terms, these values and priorities are economic and regional.

When political parties assert their position through a party platform, policy statement, and political rhetoric it provides as sense of (false) hope to people that subscribe to a particular platform or supercharge resentment towards the current governing party. Since politics and politicians are the merchants of ideas and purveyors of policy and legislation, they advocate the idea that under their “leadership” and “direction”, the values and priorities of the country will be represented and implemented under their governance. The other message resonating throughout the opposition parties during an election that the current government does not reflect the peoples interests, values, or hope for the future. 

Regardless of the political party, the political passions of the party are studiously veiled under the pretext of public good. Their message is a cacophony of rhetoric on the benefits for the country, regions, demographics, and business. When political parties make pronouncements filled with emotive hyperbolic language, are they using them in a Machiavellian fashion as an instrument of power? This is a question that the electorate needs to evaluate. Again, depending on the region or economic interest, the evaluation of the message will have different conclusions

Political parties employ a range of hyperbolic language during the course of an election to create a movement where constituents are proselytized to the ideas of the party. It is a form of indoctrination. They influence the public to embrace the messaging to build support for their particular position. Successful politicians and political parties are able to convince the electorate to propagate their positions, policies, and platforms. Whatever the perspective, successful political parties during an election are able to convince the public to be their talking heads.

By convincing the electoral public to embrace their position, political parties have achieved cognitive capture of public opinion. Cognitive capture is where political parties have captured society’s thinking on the party platform to the point that they have become the talking heads for the political elite. They are the electoral voice of the party without any voice within the party. Since the electoral public has no voice in the political party mechanism, elections themselves and politics is, essentially, an exchange of elites. It is the elites of the party as the governing party that determines who get what and how much. As for who pays, it is clear that no matter what party is in government, the middle-class provides the financial support to ensure the services of government are delivered. Economic elite reap the rewards of allocation and benefits of policy and legislation.

Election results are pernicious to those that are the talking heads...and they don't realize the political system serves the economic and political elite. Those with the influence and connections to power and politics will benefit from whatever choice the voting public elect to govern. The political and economic elite have captured society’s interests.