The perpetual follies of pathetic political parties

The dissipated West is in recovery mode and very vulnerable to relapse.

Before I proceed further I must clarify that when it comes to politics I don’t see political parties, president’s and prime minister’s as being elected. I see them as being thrown out of office by electorates. That is to say they arrive in office with so much political capital to burn and some burn it up more quickly than others, and needless to say there are those who arrive in office and shouldn’t be there, having no political capital in the first place. This has become all too frequent today.

Secondly ,political parties today of every shape and size are on my shit list . They have roundly betrayed and abandoned the public they are supposed to serve. Not only are they corrupted up to their eye balls, lining their pockets with cash and privileges unearned and unworthy of them, they can’t serve the basic function of serving up credible candidates.

Thirdly, there is a lot of talk these days about the collapse of democracy and it is most conspicuously replete. When I hear talk of our pretensions of democracy these days I am ready to cough up my cookies. The collapse of democracy in the West is largely the malfeasance of political parties to function with anything respecting basic competence, integrity and honesty. They have neutered themselves to where they are only capable of delivering obsequious standing ovations on all the wrong occasions for all the wrong people. They retreat into bipartisanship as a cheap trick to avoid doing their appointed rounds. They are the cheap cheerleaders for more wars and the charlatans of doublespeak, capped off with no candor.

Fourth, The suggestion has been made that political parties be abandoned and I highly support this notion as we must in these post modern times take a serious look at how we govern our affairs. Present systems are sorely out of date and highly corrupted. For me constituent assemblies have a lot of appeal, as tribunals that are composed of both elected and selected appointments so that historians, academics, economists et al influence government policy. As it is now they are a brain trust relegated to the margins and regarded as dissidents, while the yahoos graze in our inconsequential legislatures.

Fifth, I often wonder if our allegiance to sports, our favorite football and hockey teams, out weighs our allegiances to good government and commitment to civics. A joke often told at the expense of Canadians is that for us democracy only occurs every four years— on election day, all else is hockey hockey, hockey and as Neil Postman, pointed out, Amusing Ourselves to Death.

It is also the opinion of this writer that we get the government we deserve. However, there is an alarming polarization of power in all the wrong places, which threatens the return of some semblance of democracy. Once thriving civil societies have been beaten into the ground by endless negative social impacts."

When I phone my doctor, lawyer, or plumber, I have confidence that their formal training and competence are assured. When it comes to politics, this is far from assured, as I have seen the machinations of political parties over too many years, where their self-interest prevails over the obligations to the public they are supposed to serve. They are the least credentialed vocation in our societies, where “salability” too often prevails over competence. Political correctness is too often the standard, and facile expediencies the norm.

I have seen leadership races where competence is passed over in favor of the “safe” candidate, with cosmetic charisma that doesn’t really exist and superficial assessments. Parties and the public must give more careful and considered scrutiny to who is elected in a time when the quality and effectiveness of governance are more important than ever, realizing that in this day and age, policies and issues must have more rigorous scrutiny, where consequences have greater magnitudes.

Donald Trump delivered his stinging condemnation of the Biden Democrats in his inaugural address. It was well-deserved, as it ranks as the worst presidential term ever, provoking a war in Ukraine that never should have happened and an appalling genocide in Gaza that is an indelible black mark on America, facilitated by a president who never should have occupied the highest office in the land.

After all their desperate attempts to block another Trump presidency, it never occurs to the Democratic Party that they were Trump’s unwitting ally. By fielding not one but two unacceptable candidates in a row—Clinton, then Biden—the Democrats paved the way for the arrival of a populist leader to pounce on their grievous ineptitudes. The world is astounded at Trump as the new potentate, but the Democrats left voters no other alternative.

The arrival of populist leaders, and demagogues is not mere coincidence; they signal the consummate failure of political parties.

The Republicans do not walk away from the debacle unscathed. They are a reactionary, war-mongering cabal who, like the Democrats, are a party of abandonment and dissolution. They might want to reference Stan Tanenhaus' "The Death of Conservatism." As it is, forever wars will continue to destroy the Empire and act as a robust endorsement for the emerging multipolar world. It must cleanse itself of the idiocy of Lindsay Graham et al.

North of 49, Canada’s Liberal Party mimics the US Democrats, also intent on their self-destruction. A decade ago, they elected a leader who rode to fame on his father’s good name but was devoid of his father’s political talents and intelligence. A decade later, he has finally been forced to resign after stumbling through a ten-year political honeymoon where he was never held accountable by his party, which should have ousted him after his first term. The Liberals suffer the same slothfulness as their Democrat counterparts. Now, another predatory populist waits in the wings for his turn to take a kick at the cat.

Of course, our pitiful political parties exist in the much larger social context where neoliberalism rules the West. It is the gigantic ideological vacuum sucking up the wealth of nations, waging forever wars, creating too many oligarchs, and buying off politicians. The stated intention of neoliberalism is to “denigrate” the role of government, and they have done a miraculous job of total obliteration. Neoliberalism is the bastard child of predatory capitalism.

Another subject for another time.

What do you think?