BE SMART ABOUT POLITICS

You can tell that they are lying because their lips are moving

The correspondent asks a voter what outcomes he expects from his just-cast ballot. The reply: “Improve the economy; more jobs; safety in the streets; I don’t want this country to turn into another Cuba.” This sounds like GOP-speak. Yet it is not directly so. The interview took place in Santiago, Chile, following last Sunday’s presidential election. Others interviewed exhibited a general ignorance of the past activities of the right-wing president-elect.

Many interviewed could not mention the accomplishments of their preferred candidate, not could they specifically mention the failings of the opposition. Memories of the Pinochet years have been forgotten, when thousands were disappeared and censorship and oppression reigned through his right-wing regime. So, like the changing of the seasons, oligarchs and authoritarians are back to oppress those who elected them based on the vague promises of “jobs” and “law and order”.

The southern cone of the Americas is now plunging into governmental darkness and oligarchic rejoicing, from east to west. Some observers may ascribe the election results to their perception of Argentina and Chile as “banana republics”, with malleable electorates. Yet those election campaigns and their outcomes are strangely similar to the November 2024 presidential election results in the US, perhaps the biggest banana republic of all at this time.

And the mis-selection of leaders is not limited to right-wing efforts, as can be seen in many countries around the world.

That is where we are as humanity. We do not think through our preferred candidate’s attributes, be they moral, administrative, honesty, sincerity, even criminality. We vote with our gut instead of our brains and are never quite ready for that gut-punch of reality when our selection wins and reaches deeply into our pockets and civil liberties, extracting our life’s values and filling coffers, consolidating power, and implementing oppressive agendas that may not have been previously disclosed to voters.

There are things that we can do to prevent these outcomes. Stay calm and question, question a lot what the candidates say. Confirm their promises vs. reality and their track record. Decide in the direction of love, compassion, justice, mercy, peace, joy, generosity, patience, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Avoid basing your decisions on greed, entitlements, indifference, groupthink, mass hysteria, violence.

Be resilient and resist oppression.

Think deeply before voting.

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