INCONVENIENT VOTERS
The West is currently greatly
pre-occupied with elections of importance, some have already happened and throw
up tricky issues, others are yet to come and fill us with foreboding. Our
democratic systems demand regular elections but briefly we envy the tyrants and
dictators who dispense with or rigidly control such events, as the campaigns
surrounding democratic elections are ugly, destabilising and often feed our
dangerous self-delusions.
Phizz’depiction
of the Eatonswill election for Dickens’ Pickwick Papers (1836)
Dickens satirised these events but
did not greatly exaggerate noisy electoral turmoil. Just go this week to a
Tommy Robinson demo in scruffy old London, a Donald Trump rally in rust-belt
America or a Jean-Luc Melenchon manifestation in deprived Paris and you
will certainly see some nasty-looking characters. These characters need to be
kept at a great distance from government. As ever:
The best lack all conviction,
and the worst are filled with passionate intensity (W B Yeats).
The Western democracies are often
saddled with cock-eyed voting systems.
Thus, In the UK the revered
first-past-the- post system over-rewards the strongest party and marginalises also-rans.
Party Candidates Votes Vote
share Seats
Labour 631
9,708,716 33.70% 411
Conservative 635 6,828,925 23.70% 121
Reform UK
609 4,117,610 14.29% 5
LibDems
630 3,519,143 12.22%
72
Green Party 574 1,842,436 6.40% 4
SNP 57 724,758 2.52% 9
Sinn Féin 14 210,891 0.73% 7
Reform split the vote on the
Right and let in Labour many times. The LibDems concentrated their fire-power
and prospered mightily. Labour’s vote share was unimpressive but delivered a
stunning victory. Reform’s vote was too thinly spread to translate into seat wins.
Regional anomalies abound.
In France, the system is a form
of proportional representation, which is fairer, but there is so much
fragmentation that fanciful coalitions become established. Thus, France Unbowed,
a far-Left coalition, has come out as the largest grouping, after Macron foolishly
called a snap election after the populist Right FN, under Marine Le Pen, won
the highest vote in the European elections. France Unbowed led by crackpot
veteran Jean-Luc Melenchon is now the largest group in the Assembly. Among
Melenchon’s policy gems are a 100% income tax on salaries over Eur 360,000pa, strong
support for Hamas, anti-Zionism and support for the reunification of Belgian
Wallonia with France! This grouping’s sole purpose is to frustrate the Right –
a perilous road towards civil war. Macron is drunk with Napoleonic fantasies
and metropolitan France is beset by decadence as the Olympic Opening Ceremony sadly
demonstrated. A malodorous Gallic stew!
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Marine Le Pen
But all this is of nothing compared to the mess in the USA!
First the US election is an interminable
torture starting in mid-2023, at last voting wearily in November 2024 but not
actually inaugurating a new President until January 2025! The hot air generated
is truly Herculean, but the likely candidates are unworthy of all the trouble
they create.
The front runner is shop-soiled ex-President
Donald Trump, of whom the outside world is heartily sick, but who commands the
Republican support of prosperous, but not mega-rich, professionals and hayseed proles
dazzled by the rhetoric of MAGA jingoism. He pretends his record is wonderful,
but he alienated NATO, failed to solve any international problem and appeased
Russia (Putin no doubt has some dirt or financial lever on him). Trump has no
original thoughts, his speeches ramble on (I 1/2 hours at last count) with endless
self-congratulation and now childish mocking of Kamala’s’ name. By good fortune
he dodged lawsuits and an assassin’s bullet, but he remains a convicted felon,
a blowhard and an ignorant oik. Yet he may well win.
The Democrats were hobbled with
the incumbent Joe Biden, a third-rate stopgap at best and embarrassingly senile
and gaga for many long months. Finally forced to stand down from the election,
in his vanity Biden stays on as President for 5 more months, babbling about his
love of Ireland and dislike of Britain. He could not run a whelk-stall, yet Americans
trust him with their nuclear codes. God help us!
Joe Biden and Kamala
Harris
Donald Trump
He has nominated as his successor
his vice-President Kamala Harris, who was not popular as she embodies
Californian Wokery – championing sexual diversity, soft on drug offences,
border security and prison sentencing. But she is not Biden and is female and
black, so she appeals to a certain constituency. Even so, I think she is only a
long shot for the winner’s laurels.
So, elections are a lottery,
electorates are fickle, and we are addicted to their use.
SMD
30.7.24
Text copyright © Sidney Donald 2024
