The entire Internet seems to be taken over by the EU elections on June 9th. Everyone from my Facebook, Google, Spotify and Instagram accounts is telling me to go vote. Everywhere I look, the screens and streets are flooded by ads for any and every political party. Big and small. In power and with zero chance. They’re all putting money on getting the name out there.
Which makes one wonder... why is it so hard to find someone to support?
I was gonna go vote for some people whose activity I liked during lockdown. On closer consideration, I’ve come to realize they’re kinda dicks. So I don’t wanna vote for them anymore. Still, society pressures you. Friends tell you. Oh, but you have to vote!
... Why?
Why should I go vote if no single candidate or party has won me over with their campaign? I don’t know what it’s like where you are, but here, slogans seem shit. Agendas are indescribably shady. The only thing any one party is upfront about is how they don’t want the other guy to win. But what they’re gonna do? How they’re gonna serve Romania in the EU? Not a fucking word. What kind of incentive to vote is that?
Oh, but you should vote so that the bad guys don’t get in, my friend tells me.
Except, I’m not so sure who the bad guys are. Who? X party? Why? Because Y party told me? Sounds shoddy to me. What’s next, Y party gonna tell me to go jump off a bridge? Well, more likely they’re gonna tell me to give them money, or try to take away my freedom or some stuff like that.
I’m sorry, maybe I’m being outrageous. But it seems to me it’s your job as a politician to put in the effort and convince me why I should vote for you. Yet here, as pretty much everywhere else, the overriding political rhetoric of the last few years seems to be, because we don’t like the other guy.
Frankly, I’m indifferent to the other guy. I think both you and the other guy are crooks who are only interested in as much money and power as they can possibly secure for their own families and friends. I don’t think so-and-so is the definitive devil, nor have I identified any clear-cut saints in the running.
And unless I do, I don’t see any viable reason to actually get out of my house next week and queue up to vote. I may yet change my mind. If I do bother, I’ll probably go vote for the dicks. I mean, they may be dicks, but in Corey Taylor’s words, at least they’re my dicks. And I can actually point out something good they’ve done to benefit us as a society and me as an individual. Which is loads more than I can say about these other chaps.
But failing that, I’m staying home. Why should I vote? So I can fit in? So I can feel self-righteous, like the fate of the world is on my shoulders? I’m too cynical to believe that, unfortunately. I’m sure whichever party or individual I put my trust in is largely in it for themselves. So I know better than to put my trust in them.
