Why You Hate Politicians

If you aren't already disgusted, or at least slightly disenchanted, with our political leaders after only a few days of Election 2011, you just haven't been paying attention.

The accusations, justifications, oversimplifications, obfuscations, and outright lies are enough to make any sentient being who loves this country despair.

How did we get to this sad point? I have a theory about that (or course). Or rather, I used to have a theory; recently I had to revise and expand it.

For the last few decades there's been a steady drumbeat, generally from the corporate-owned, right wing media, aimed at what I'll call the less sophisticated citizen. Or in their own demographic terms, the Tim Hortons Nation. The message goes like this: all politicians are the same – venal, corrupt, untrustworthy liars concerned only with their own perks and pensions.

This is, in fact, a favourite theme of Conservative politicians. Remember Mike Harris and his Fewer Politicians Act? We were all going to be better served if we elected fewer people to represent us. The Reform Party's disdain for MP's pensions, conveniently forgotten once they got elected, only served to reinforce their own stereotype.

But the corporate and financial elites know this is nonsense. They know politics and politicians matter. They just don't want you to think so. It's simply the law of supply and demand: once you're out of the market, they can get their pet politicians elected and they can buy them on the cheap.

So in time politics comes to be dominated by political waterboys – people whose entire careers have been in the service of the elites (google the resumés of Stephen Harper or Tim Hudak, for examples, though they're far from unique). Ever wonder why the right thing, the good thing, the sensible thing never seems to get done by government? Now you know.

A corollary to my theory is that once politics becomes dominated by these pet poodles, good people, people with a desire for seeing that the public good is served, stay away from politics. The problem continues to get worse.

That, as I say, was my original theory: we've been told politics is a load of crap and politicians are all crooks so that we'll stay away. That way, the elites and their right wing lackeys are allowed free rein. And that's what's happened over the last thirty years.

And with predictable results. Canadians are so estranged from their own public debate that a record low of only 58.8% of voters cast a ballot in the last federal election in 2008. The turnout is expected to be even lower this time. And this constitutes a very grave danger.

We have a prime minister, Stephen Harper, who has not only deliberately degraded the reputation of politics and politicians, but has also demonstrated flagrant contempt for the very principles and institutions of Canadian democracy.

I believe this is a deliberate strategy. Harper knows that Canada is not a conservative nation. His core constituency accounts for little more than a third of voters. But if he can rally his supporters with the kind of divisive issues that appeal to them, while turning off most of the rest of us, he could win a majority of seats in Parliament and accomplish his goal of transforming Canada in his own image.

So my theory boils down to this: If you're disgusted by the state of politics in this country, it's because you're supposed to be. If enough of us stop caring, and stay home on election day, Stephen Harper wins.