I voted yesterday. First time in ten years I’d crossed that democratic rubicon. Got all dressed up too. Wore a MAGA Trump hat that my sister regrettably got me as a joke for Christmas and my Obama shirt that my aunt jubilantly mailed to me after the election in 2008. The two sides of the democratic coin, so to speak. The wonder, the magic, that a country with a history of legal, institutional slavery managed to decide, together, that they were a choosing a Black man as their symbolic leader. Incredible. And then not eight years later. Eight years later. Decided, together, to choose a rich old racist white man as their symbolic leader.
One difference though.
Popular vote.
For some reason here in North America we are wedded to an electoral system that hasn’t really evolved since a group of rich, landowning white men got together and decided that they had the legal monopoly over the use of force within their national boundaries. We call these nation states. Holla Max Weber.
“First past the post” is a system designed to streamline the effectiveness of statecraft. None of this continental European squabbling. None of this compromising. First past the post neglects public opinion – on purpose. It was designed by the lords in Britain to grant themselves more power over both the monarch and the people in the 19th century. At one point, there’s an apocryphal old tale of a borough comprised of “one man, two cows and a field” sending two MPs to Westminster. A likely tale indeed.
But that is the essence of First Past the Post. It’s a system designed by the elites that created our governments back in the 19th century, the elites that know they have the legal right to use force in this territory. And that anyone born in that territory is immediately, without reproach, their subject. That’s us. We’re subject to this. We were born in our countries – and I’ll be honest, I’m beyond fortunate that I was born here in Canada of all places, one of the white countries at the top of this global economically exploitative totem pole. Yeah we know we live the way we do because billions of people around the world don’t.
Where was I?
Right. First Past the Post was designed around the principle of responsibility. To be pretty clear:
“It’s overall majority leaves it free to act responsibly and do the ‘right thing’. Thus it is not tied to taking the most popular course solely to preserve a Commons majority. It can follow a strong policy line, even though it might be unpopular in the short term.” (UK Government and politics, 23)
Like, you know- conscription.
When the lords in Britain (and Canada) voted to force young men to go to war. And not just any war-But World War One. A war marked by industrial scale slaughter and now-laughable incompetence. Literally just sending wave after wave of young men over the trenches into machine gun fire. For four years. They – I know I keep saying they- they refers to the Lords, the elites, the people who make the decisions but never get their feet dirty – they sat in their officer tents, they sat in parliament, in Chateaus while millions of men died. For a couple hundred yards.
And they’ve done it again. As recently as Vietnam.
Responsible.
We’re lucky it hasn’t happened yet.
There was an election yesterday. And I voted for the first time in ten years. With a MAGA hat and an Obama shirt. I voted for the NDP in a riding that they won by 19,000 votes. 2.3 million Ontarians voted for the Conservatives. 1.9 million voted for the NDP. 1.1 million voted Liberal. 40% of people who voted in Ontario want a Conservative government. Yet they have 76 seats in the legislature. 61% of the legislature – for those keeping track.
Responsible.
That word keeps sticking with me. It kept cropping up as I was quickly reading up on British electoral history. I can’t help but think of stuffy Lords in their mansions poo-poo-ing about responsibility while discussing empire and the servants and their duty to the Queen and God.
Responsible.
To who? To us? The people – the majority? Or to themselves and their friends in their Chateauxs. I think we all know the answer. Especially those that voted for Dough (LOL typo win) and Trump. They voted for Doug and Trump because they were angry. They’re still angry. They’re angry at the elites. The elites in power. So are we – us progressive city-dwellers. We’re all angry at the same thing. And we’re all in the same bind: we have to work so we can pay for food and shelter – our most basic needs as humans on this planet. They don’t have to. Dough and Trump. And their sycophants.
They – the lords back in the 19th century – the ones who designed first past the post, never had to worry about food and shelter. All the while Dickens wrote his stories and Marx wrote his analysis of the squalor and suffering produced by industrial plunder. That same plunder that made all the lords rich. Who then designed a system intended to preserve their power, while slowly – very very slowly – extending the right to vote in this rigged system to non-landowning white men.
Responsible.
To themselves. We all know that. And yet here we are. With Doug and Trump and who knows, I wouldn’t be surprised if Jordan Peterson ends up as Prime Minister. Because they all know the system is rigged in their favour. And they’ll never change it.
This Justin campaigned on electoral reform. I bet he actually believed he could do it too. I bet he wanted to. But then I bet you the moment he won the election, a group of old-school LIberal party apparitchiks sidled up to him and laid it easy: Justin, I remember when you were in diapers. We’re not reforming the electoral system. It keeps us in power. Sounds like a political conspiracy novel for sure.
Responsible.
It’s hard to say what the answer is though – Proportional Representation is a good one. But maybe, just maybe, we need to lose sight of this whole “nation state” thing instead. Go back to more local, actually responsive and accountable governments. Like municipalities, within a federation that only deals with foreign affairs. Municipalities powered by the sun and the wind, with vertical farms and greenhouses, rendering food and energy free – we have the technology. We have the technology, right now. It’s too expensive they say. Who? They. The ones in power, the ones that benefit from whatever electoral system we have, the ones that don’t want to lose that power if we – we the people get together and make our own system for us. Based on sharing and fairness.
It’s nice to dream.
-Rashid
