Politics is about a conflict between ideas. We get used to only two such ideas in the Westminster system so popular in the English-speaking world, because that's what is encouraged. Us & them. Left & right. Progressive & conservative. We tend to simplify this to good & evil. One side will do me good, & the other will not, therefore it's evil. This is simplistic & works for sound bites & broadcast advertising. With the rise of targeted advertising & unregulated information sources claiming to be informed when merely opinionated, & the general echo chamber of your corner of the internet, the game has changed a little. Some political entities have used this for good - focusing on an issue - while others have used this new media for evil - focusing on people. I was just reminded of that quote usually attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt: small minds discuss people, larger minds discuss events, great minds discuss ideas.
We often talk about the lowest common denominator, & it's a sad fact that compulsory voting in Australia means that those who don't want to vote will happily be swayed by a message that resonates with their own attitude towards elected politicians ... by believing one elected politician over another. Sometimes the purpose is to create an elected politician from a humble millionaire.
The environment has, however, created an atmosphere of true good & evil. In the past, election campaigns have been run on promises, & they've been relatively positive ones, with the hope of capturing the 'middle ground' of the electorate from whatever side of the spectrum a party has started. Each party has had a core 'location' on that spectrum, but has tried to broaden its appeal. This is a situation that the older voters, in particular, are used to, & sometimes it frustrates the younger ones.
Times have changed, though, as I said. Rather than seeking the middle ground, new forces are trying to polarise the electorate beyond mere differentiation. Instead of making different promises on how much will be spent where - which generally has a positive outcome for someone - new parties stand on a platform of punishing voters. This is beyond mere carrot-&-stick tactics, & it's not limited to a single party. It's never met with success so far, but you never know.
For years, the Greens have been demonised as a party that was 'anti-progress' (usually claimed by conservatives) for standing in the way of development, by curbing pollution & greenhouse emissions, & wanting to 'punish' the businesses that rape & pillage the landscape at no cost to themselves. Businesses, however, don't vote, & this sounded like a soft target, except that business investors can afford to throw cash into advertising & then rally their employees, who'd rather have a job than a blade of grass to admire all day. Punishment isn't an effective political campaign.
For almost as long, an anti-immigration party in various forms has raised its ugly head to claim it would punish the migrants from a number of undisclosed countries that arrived after some undisclosed time from reuniting with their families. The soft target here is a steady stream of non-voting visa-holders that are generally grouped under 'backpackers & students', but also includes (genuine) refugees, overseas seasonal workers & some skilled workers. None of these vote unless they get permanence. However, the institutions that benefit from the income from students, & the farmers that employ the workers do vote, but have less individual power than, say, a mine owner.
Now, I'm not suggesting that broken promises & outlandish claims of how much better off we'll be under one government or another is a situation I want to return to in a political groundhog day from which I can't escape & don't even learn anything from, but I much prefer to be told how much better things could be if I vote one way over another, than be told how much worse it will be if I don't. I've never been swayed by such political wrangling & I'm unlikely to be swayed by the new jingoism, because, fundamentally, I believe too much in absolute democracy, which allows for - indeed encourages! - idiots to be represented by idiots. You can see the concentration of idiocy reflected in who they elect, & this is not necessarily a comment on American politics.
Full disclosure: I have belonged to two political parties in the past. In my youth, I was a member of the left of Labor who voted consistently with the right, & many years later I was a member of the Greens who had no real interest in environmentalism. I have voted for local independents in most elections, in safe electorates where my vote 'won't matter', because I still believe in democracy, &, in general, so do those who run as independents.
As much as I can dream of a government made of a coalition of issue-based parties that collapses only to reform at the next election, as seems common enough across Europe, I suspect it will never happen here, & as a result we are unlikely to get 'interesting' politicians beyond the occasional former sportsperson, which seems appropriate given how many former politicians end up heading sporting bodies.
The only real way to solve the issue of politics is to take the power away from the Parliament & give it to some professionals who merely need oversight from independent - elected - officials who themselves have no agenda & think of their role as fulfilling a civic duty for a fixed term. The only problem with that is the complete lack of 'leadership', because we all need someone to look up to or else blame.
This is why I have always preferred the concept of benevolent dictatorship, effectively what the Greeks called a tyrant. Look it up.
