As I’ve grown older, I now know that politics is different for everyone. For some, it’s about taxes. For others, it’s about supporting a political party like some support their favourite sports team: forever loyal no matter what.
There’s a quote attributed to the Greek politician, Pericles: “Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.”
At the very least, even when people trip up and get things wrong, we’re trying. Bots, social media giants, and bad-faith actors are not trying to have those conversations. They’re not trying to understand different viewpoints. They are trying to incite, divide, and confuse voters. If we can’t talk politics person-to-person, neighbour-to-neighbour, and especially among family, how can we learn from one another or understand each other? How can we feel empathy when we see the other person as the problem?
As election day draws closer, some indications show that Canadians are paying more attention than they have in years. Maybe we’re talking politics more with each other instead of letting the bots and bad actors take control. That would be a start.
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Being political is a civic duty. Doing otherwise just means you get to pretend you’re not responsible when the government does something you disagree with. This entire country is everyone’s responsibility, whether you like it or not, whether you want that responsibility or not, a citizen doesn’t get to abdicate that responsibility for any reason. Even when our votes don’t win the election, we are still responsible. If avoiding responsibility was as easy as voting for a party or candidate that doesn’t win, or not voting at all, who would bother? If you can just say “I’m not responsible because I didn’t vote for them” how are you ever going to get any control again? How are you going to avoid ending up under a tyrant? How are you going to change the status quo if you do nothing? Try something new, stop doing the same thing you always have and expecting a different result.
Take responsibility. Be political. Your success and even your survival depends on it.
I lump this in with employees not talking about salary. Not talking about it only benefits those in power.
When we swap face-to-face conversations for social media engagement, everyone loses
Given that this is from TVO I think it should be pointed out that one could replace “social media” with “television” in that sentence and it would be even more true.
Eh. I don’t need to learn racism.
It’s not about learning racism. It’s about learning why people are choosing racism, and figuring out ways to do something about it. Nobody’s saying politics has be a polite debate between equally valid positions. Politics is about finding practical ways to defeat your enemy. And make no mistake, these racists and fascists are our enemies. The ones can be turned away from it or turned to our side, should be, and the ones that can’t, must be destroyed.
OK, sounds good
