The Grumpy old fart is making an appearance today

It’s our own fault, really. We have been voting for form over function for decades. It started during the Kennedy vs. Nixon election when television inserted itself into the conversation. Prior to 1960, we received election promises through the newspaper and during scheduled speeches. These two forms of communication were much slower and more reasoned. They had the advantage of being edited and second guessed. Advisors could help influence the actual content of a politician’s promises, vision, and answers. There was time for reflection, along with the naïve concept of thinking that they should only propose an idea for the good of the people. Well, most of the time anyway.

Television started the descent into leadership hell. During the 1960 debates, we were wondering about Nixon’s 5 o’clock shadow and they contrasted it with Kennedy’s youth and good looks. That Kennedy was a better speaker helped, too. TV had an extraordinary influence on voting behaviour that year and it, along with some new influences, has been growing ever since.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that politicians were better or more honest prior to 1960. I am simply pointing out the change in how voters consumed political fodder. When the back-room boys realized the power held by television, they were quick to jump on board, but it changed an essential dynamic of the election process. Money! In order to compete in an election, political wannabees needed to purchase space on television and that cost escalated the need to raise enormous sums of money. It helped if you already had lots of money at your disposal, and the connections that go with it, so it eliminated the “average person.”

We were no longer making voting decisions based on ideas or vision, but on who we saw most frequently on TV ads and how they looked and spoke. Name recognition in the polling booth is a result of frequency in the media. Form over function. Big money had claimed an overpowering influence in our voting decisions. It was so much more obvious than previously. But we ignored it and the slide into poor leadership accelerated. The age of “influencers” had taken control.

Politicians, going back centuries, always had supporters who helped them and there were certain obligations to uphold so they could continue to receive the support. But now they had to have less intellectual capacity and more appearance capacity. Appearance extended to more than physical appearance but also influenced their words and actions. They needed to “appear” to have the interests of the voting public foremost in their promises. The only real aim after winning an election was winning the next one.

The political process has now devolved from a list of empty promises to no promises at all and nothing more than a mud slinging match. When was the last time you heard a political aspirant articulate a vision for the future of the country, state, province, or city? They now spend our time telling us about the shortcoming of their opponents. Negative campaigning has become the norm and we let them continue. We keep electing people who do nothing more than bitch and complain about other people’s efforts.

Apparently, we get what we deserve for politicians. I wish I had a simple solution, but until vision, fulfilling promises, electorate first becomes more important than the design on a politician’s socks, we get poor leadership. We are not electing leaders; we are electing media pros, personality and appearances.

yours truly,

Grumpy Old Fart