It's the first Tuesday in November, so even though it's an odd-numbered year with no big federal elections, there are state and local offices, ballot initiatives, and other matters up for vote across much of the US today. It's another bloody Election Day. and I'm not trying to use a British vulgarity here. Beneath the veneer of ritual, I see violence.
I have written before about politics and nationalism as a civil religion. It should come as no surprise that if questioning the legitimacy of the results of an election like the protesters did on January 6th is considered treason, then questioning the validity of the electoral system before the election is downright heretical. We have all been raised to believe democracy is how we ensure the consent of the governed, but this does not withstand scrutiny. As tensions rise, it is more and more frowned upon to question the system underpinning everything. I have written about my concerns about elections and democracy before. I am not treading new ground here. To quote myself from last year,
I am not a fan of elections in general. It's a political system built on the bandwagon fallacy. A popularity contest means the people who promise to redistribute political plunder most tend to get the most support from a gullible and greedy populace. People who don't trust their neighbors to govern themselves suddenly imagine those same neighbors have the wisdom to select a ruler for everyone? That doesn't really make sense.
The idea of democratic representation collapses under the slightest scrutiny, too. There is not even an agent/principal relationship between the election winners and those who voted for them, to say nothing of voters who chose someone less popular, or those who abstained from voting altogether out of either principle or sloth.
The old saying goes, "If you don't vote, you have no right to complain." As many have said before, that's backwards. If you don't vote, you have every right to complain. You didn't play the game, so why should you be subjected to its outcome? If you did vote, you wanted a government, and regardless of the outcome, you're going to get one good and hard. Just have the decency to leave us out of it, please.
Politicians promise us a secularized salvation from war and debt and social conflict. The common question today is, "did you vote?" Mine is, "should you vote?" Most people are not ready for such questions. Why not?
We all know campaign promises aren't worth a tinker's damn, right? The "lying politician" is an ancient stereotype for good reason.
Why does the ignorant vote carry as much weight as that of the expert?
Can a system which claims to protect minorities operate by majority vote? As I have said before, elections are just a formalized bandwagon fallacy.
How are people "represented" by politicians for whom they did not vote, or explicitly voted against? I supported neither Biden nor Trump in 2020. Neither could be my agent.
Do we have a right to impose our political preferences upon our neighbors? We agree nowadays not to impose our denominational tenets, so why our political tenets?
We have all been taught that voting is a right, but I contend that in the civil religion of the modern democratic process, voting is a rite. Those who refuse are deemed sinners who fall short of their duty to God society. Those whose candidate lose are redeemed by participation, and get a sticker as a consolation prize. Those whose candidates win have no accountability for the actions of the elected despite claiming responsibility for it. Does this really add up?
Every political act can be whittled down to, "comply or die." If democracy works as advertised, voting is direct participation in violence. Blood is on your hands if you vote for a politician who then goes to war, or even just maintains the status quo of corrupt laws and courts enforced by police brutality. If you disagree, please comment. Just don't parrot some middle-school civics lesson you imagine I never saw before.
