Dead or in the Can: Why I don't vote anymore

A Personal View

“Don’t complain if you don’t participate” is the response I’ve gotten quite a few times when I mention that I won’t be voting in any more elections. As I responded to one particular user on Twitter when he said those exact words to me, “I’ll complain as much as I like, thank you very much.”

This is my country, you see - I don’t have to take part in the machinations of interlopers in order to have a say.

Sigh - let me try to explain…

Democracy 2.0

The modern incarnation of democracy, in Ireland and abroad, is a strange thing. It sure looks like a democracy and it often appears to be acting like one too but it produces some strange results. For starters, in theory, it should produce the very best of us as leaders. In a fair, democratic system where anyone can technically stand for office and everyone can vote for whoever they want - the cream will rise to the top, won’t it? So how do we explain Joe Biden - a clearly demented octogenarian as leader of the “Free World”? What of his predecessor (and successor?) Donald Trump? Now, I think Trump is not even half as bad as an hysterical US media make him out to be but that does not bring him close to being the best the country has to offer. He’s a crass and divisive oaf who failed on his two key election promises (Build the Wall & Drain the Swamp). What of Boris Johnson as UK Prime Minister - a man who lurched from scandal to scandal while seemingly bantering his way through most of his premiership? What of Simon Harris as Taoiseach of Ireland - a man whose incompetence directly led to the collapse of the last Irish government only to somehow become the leader of the current one? Can we honestly say that this collection of doddering spoofers and charlatans are the best their countries have to offer?

What is it about democracy that produces such (at best) mediocrity?

More worrying is what these mid-wits do with their power. All of these leaders, along with many more across the world, were part of democratic governments that turned off the basic civil liberties of their populations - seemingly as easy as turning off a tap. They inflicted lockdowns on their citizens - a term normally reserved for the criminal inhabitants of prisons. They prevented hitherto free citizens from visiting their loved ones in care homes and hospitals - condemning thousands of elderly people to die alone (often in total isolation and a state of neglect). They forced masks onto children for hours on end in school despite openly admitting that they didn’t know if they worked or not.¹ The Irish government (along with others) signed actual segregation into law - legally ostracising citizens and shutting them out of numerous areas of society for choosing not to take an emergency medical product with no long-term safety data. Emergency powers then prevented the people from exercising their constitutional right to protest any of this ill-treatment. Even now, the long awaited inquiry into the Irish Government’s handling of the Covid response is to have a “no-blame approach” at the behest of that same Government.

Does any of this sound particularly democratic?

This authoritarian trend has continued after Covid. With the pandemic firmly in the rear-view mirror, the Irish government has repeatedly tried to push through new Hate Speech legislation despite clear indication that the majority of the population are against it. They (again, along with other countries) have also pursued what can only be described as a “make it up as you go along” approach to the immigration crisis that is affecting most of Europe and America. It’s not really a question of whether what the government are pursuing in relation to immigration is right or wrong but more that the people of the country have never had any kind of say on it which is, after all, the whole point of democracy. The Government did not run on any kind of immigration policy in the last election that could have been accepted or rejected by the electorate at the voting booth. Now, having been in power for four years, they still haven’t formulated or articulated any specific immigration policy that could be examined or criticised or used as a measure of their performance. As such, they operate purely on their own whim on this issue, answering to nobody as the country continues to alter significantly year by year.

Again is this democracy? Is this how it’s supposed to work? Maybe we should just call it Democracy 2.0 - all the drawbacks of democracy 1.0 but none of its frivolous concerns about rights, liberties, and the will of the people.

Okay, but we can still vote out this offending government, right? It might take five years during which they can do untold harm but still, democracy has the safety net of mandatory elections. Except, Democracy 2.0 doesn’t seem to work like that. We did vote out this government in the last election or, at least, it seemed that way. Fine Gael were in power and were the biggest party going into the 2020 election whereupon they were categorically rejected by the electorate finishing third behind both Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin in what was a three horse race between the major parties. Still though they wrangled their way into Government via an unprecedented coalition with their century-long rivals in Fianna Fáil and today we somehow still have a Fine Gael Taoiseach (the aforementioned Simon Harris) despite that comprehensive rejection. As the Fine Gael leader at the time said:

"We were defeated in this election, there is no point in trying to dress that up in any way."

And yet there they are - still leading the country. Like I said, this version of democracy produces some strange results.

Ireland, thus, has very little choice at the polling booth. For all of its history the country has swung between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael but now both parties are in government together and, in terms of policy, they have become essentially identical. Sinn Féin are the only viable opposition but they have done little meaningful opposing in recent years. They supported all of the Government’s suppressing of rights and liberty during Covid. They supported the Hate Speech legislation too (not passively - they actually voted for it in parliament) until public opinion changed and they decided to abandon it. Most of the smaller parties either supported the Government (Labour) or actually wanted more liberty removed during the pandemic as they pushed “Zero Covid” (People Before Profit, Social Democrats) - a policy that combined authoritarianism with being totally useless. The only actual opposition came from a small number of independent TDs like Michael McNamara and Mattie McGrath along with Aontu (a party with one single TD).

The Great Unravelling

Perhaps all of this is why Democracy 2.0 is unravelling. That this is the case seems particularly apparent in the UK and Ireland where each country is on its third leader since the last election. This does not scream stability. As mentioned, in Ireland, our last election resulted in an unprecedented coalition between the two main rival parties just to get a functioning government over the line (despite such a coalition being specifically ruled out by the leader of one of those parties prior to the election). It’s like Labour and the Conservatives forming a coalition government in the UK as their individual support dried up. This kind of result indicates to me that the people don’t know what they want (or perhaps that they do but what they want isn’t on the ballot paper). The result is that the political parties are left having to pool their meagre takings in order to cobble together a government. “If they won’t vote for one of us then they can have all of us,” seems to be the mantra of Democracy 2.0.

Meanwhile, in the USA, the country is lurching toward the kind of division normally seen in the build-up to a Civil War. Democratic voters, egged on by the media, passionately hate the Republican candidate and appear unwilling to tolerate him. At the same time, the seemingly endless legal pursuit of Trump risks fomenting the kind of persecution complex in Republican voters that may easily spark itself into civil unrest. The division is so pronounced that it has led to some of the best polling ever seen for a third-party presidential candidate in the form of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

All of this can’t and won’t continue. It’s too flimsy - the seams are showing, the system is creaking. Fundamentally, the purpose of democracy is to fairly elect a government that is representative of the people and accountable to them for its actions. Maybe this was the case with Democracy 1.0 but as a country grows and develops, as it becomes rich and prosperous and envious foreign begin to turn toward it, its governing becomes far too valuable to leave up to the people. That’s where Democracy 2.0 comes in. The people get to believe they’re free and that they’re living in a democracy while the leaders, well, they get to do whatever they want.

But the people are waking up and the system is running on fumes.

The Democratic Leader

That Democracy 2.0 is hopeless is most apparent from the leaders it produces. Consider for a moment what it takes to become a political leader in this system. Party politics means that it is impossible for an outsider to advance in the political game. Any aspiring public servant must join one of the major parties and bow down to its leader and its policies if they want any chance of a position of power. By the time they reach the top, if indeed they do, they will have been chiselled and honed by that party into the perfect facsimile of all those who went before. You might enter politics hoping to make change but it’s the system that ends up changing you.  

To become the leader of a country, a democratic system requires as essential the following criteria: 

• Power-Hungry: It’s a long road to the top – you won’t make it unless you have a true lust for power.  

• Ruthlessness: The road to the top is keenly contested. Those other people are not going to get out of the way for you. You’ll have to knock quite few of them down if you’re going to beat them.

• Believe in Nothing: If you did once believe in anything you won’t by the time you make it to the top. You’ll have to leave such things behind as the party system will only allow you on the road if you adopt their “beliefs”. The inverted commas stress that these are not “beliefs” at all but merely policy decisions that a team of consultants decided was the best vote earner. Because, ultimately, nothing matters to the Party other than power for its own sake. Take Ireland’s current Taoiseach as an example. Simon Harris first stood for election promising to “oppose any legislation to introduce abortion in Ireland”. Once elected he went on to become the very Minister who signed that legislation into law. Because that’s where the votes were. (See also above, Michael Martin’s decision to enter a coalition he previously categorically rejected - because it gave him the chance to become Taoiseach.)

• Conflict of Interest: If you’ve made it to the top, you’ll be indebted to all those who got you there. Those without your knife in their back will have an I.O.U. in their pocket and they’ll come calling for it before long.

“Some day, and that day may never come, I may call upon you to do a service for me”

None of these are good qualities but they are ones the current democratic system guarantees in its leaders. At least with a monarchy, you’d have some chance of a decent, benevolent ruler - a ruler free from obligation who never sought power but had it thrust upon them. With Democracy 2.0 it’s just systemically impossible.

The Malignant Force

Thus, to not vote is merely to give up my chance to choose which power-hungry, ruthless politician who believes in nothing ends up running my country. So be it – I don’t see the point in sifting between turds. I’m more concerned with the fact that if I do vote, my vote becomes a vote in the system itself – each one propping up Democracy 2.0 and propagating its existence. I’m not prepared to do that anymore.

To me, it is as if a malignant force has taken over my country and set up a system that is designed specifically to perpetuate its rule while allowing the people to pretend they have a say in any of it. And when I refuse to take part in this farce or prop it up in any way, I am told I am copping out and cannot complain if I don’t like the results. Really? Again, I feel very justified removing my support from this system while still bemoaning its existence.

Now, is “malignant force (that) has taken over my country” too strong?

I don’t think so.

I found myself thinking along these lines when I watched The Sopranos last year (yes, I was late to that show). The Sopranos is interesting because it essentially depicts the demise of the mafia as a major force in America. By the end of the series, Tony Soprano, the boss of the New Jersey crime family is a paranoid mess. Advances in policing and RICO-style prosecutions mean the potential returns for his kind of life are severely diminished while the prospect of jail-time is greater than ever. The risk-reward ratio has become extremely unfavourable. As he says himself to his psychiatrist:

“There's two endings for a guy like me. High-profile guy. Dead, or in the can. Big percent of the time.” 

As organised crime consequently began to diminish in the US and elsewhere, what do you think happened to these guys? The Tony Sopranos and Vito Corleones – ruthless, power-hungry people? Do those attributes sound familiar? Why would such individuals with these kind of qualities and who are attracted to such a life go into high-risk organised crime with little return when they can, instead, put on a suit, kiss a few babies and go into government or what we might now more accurately refer to as legalised crime.

Imagine a mob boss who can set the law. What he does is legal, what his enemies do illegal. Imagine a mob boss with a budget of billions instead of millions. Imagine a mob boss with a nationalised police force instead of a few dozen heavies in leather jackets. Imagine a mob boss with a team of PR consultants and a large chunk of the media in his pocket who sell the population an image of a saint rather than a crook? Which do you think Tony Soprano would choose if he were starting over? All he’d need is a new tailor and some elocution lessons.

This is essentially what has happened. I doubt our rulers think of themselves in this way but that’s what they are nonetheless. They’re criminals with a lust for power who have moved into a safer and more rewarding version of the same role. They’re just more sophisticated. More polished.

More legitimate.

“My Father’s way of doing things is over, it’s finished. Even he knows that. I mean, in five years, the Corleone family is going to be completely legitimate. Trust me”

Towards a New World

So, this is why I don’t vote. I don’t trust the man in the picture above or his modern counterparts that have legalised their crime and who now sit in legitimate dominion over us today. I don’t trust the system that put them in place and which will guarantee replicas of them for however long it continues to exist. I believe it is impossible for this version of democracy to produce a truly legitimate government and so I cannot and will not support it by participating in it. For the little it is worth, I will not allow the system to justify itself by pointing at my vote as an example of the active consent of the people in its continuation. I can only hope that the removal of my vote, along with the wider disillusionment and disengagement that is spreading across society, will lead this malevolent system to wither and die like a neglected plant. Because if governments are getting into power with weaker and weaker mandates from the people, if they constantly have to redraw political boundaries and cobble together wider and wider alliances so as to cling to power then those governments will not rule for long. They and the system that perpetuates them will collapse.

That’s where we are, I think. As I said, the signs are there. The system is unravelling before our eyes as the evils of the governments of Democracy 2.0 are exposed. Covid was the greatest revelation. Governments didn’t become evil and tyrannical because of the pandemic. They were always that way - Covid just revealed them for what they are. And now, people can see it. Not all of them but more and more each day.

As for what comes next, I’m not sure. It may be worse for a time. As Winston Churchill famously said:

“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”

I’m not sure he had Democracy 2.0 in mind when he said this but still, when systems fall they tend to be followed by a difficult period. But that will pass and afterwards I think things will get better, hopefully much better. We must strive for a world where we are not ruled eternally by the kind of people I have described in this essay. That is essential. For me, a step on the road to that world is to disengage from a system which perpetuates evil in governance over us.

1. In an email to me dated 7th August 2020, the “Covid-19 Response Team” in the Department of Health referred to guidance from the WHO and summarised: “the widespread use of masks by healthy people in the community setting is not yet supported by high quality or direct scientific evidence.” They also referenced ECDC guidance: “The ECDC also recognises that is not known how much the use of masks in the community can contribute to a decrease in transmission in addition to the other countermeasures.”