Hold your nose and vote?

A headline in The Tyee inspired me to write this brief piece. Here's the title, I hope the link is live so you can click on it and read this well thought out piece for yourself.

An Early Voter’s Guide to Trudeau (Bad) and Scheer (Worse)

Something I've pondered over with the strange outcomes in so many recent elections is why do so many voters vote against their own self-interests? The most obvious example is the election of Trump. I remember saying he couldn't possibly be elected: half the Amerikan voters are women, so he's lost their vote. Another large segment of U.S. voters are Latinos and Blacks, and they couldn't possibly vote for him, some Amerikan wealthy and/or very stupid white males will probably vote for him, which surely would be just a very small segment of the Amerikan electorate. But no - the Mofo won. How? Well, the Latinos and Blacks Trump had very publicly excoriated stayed away from voting. Instead of voting for Hilary, a somewhat tarnished candidate but one who who more or less represented their interests far more than a racist like Trump, they didn't vote. And some white women, apparently a fairly high percentage, voted for him as well. Go figure . . .   

So I have been mulling about this democratic conundrum for some years, and my conclusion, which is somewhat different or at a tangent from The Tyee essay, is that voters have to feel strongly one way or another about a candidate or else they just won't bother voting. In effect, most voters aren't knowledgeable enough to HOLD THEIR NOSES AND VOTE FOR THE LESS SCARY CANDIDATE.

Example #2: in Ontario we got Doug Ford as our new premier last year. Another scary Mofo. This time the pseudo-populist BS helped him to win out, which happens over and over. Rich dudes like Trump, or Ford, or even our Princeling Justin, pose as aw shucks common folk. A buck a beer? Ya got it! Sunny ways? Look at all my beautiful selfies  :  ) Everyone I know in my small town voted for Ford. I'm not sure how they feel about him now, as I don't want to do a whole lot of "I told you so's", or get a punch in the nose (Marmora is still a tough old mining town). But one friend, a very smart fellow with all kinds of post grad degrees, voted for Ford. The few local institutions of interest to him in our remote rural community are the library and the local conservation authority. Both cut severely by Ford. How did this smart dude miss Ford's agenda? I don't have a clue. Again, voters didn't hold their noses and vote for the severely compromised and hated Liberals, and they also didn't vote for the progressive NDP, which had a smart and dedicated working class leader from Hamilton. go figure.  

Chris Faiers


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On 2019-05-28, at 6:34 PM, Tyee Editor wrote:

Thanks for sending, and reading, Chris.--

Robyn Smith