Every election, people are told exactly what it is they need to do in order to gain more political power, to be put into the driver’s seat in every voting season, to be the people the politicians listen to and care about, and to join the true ruling class of a democracy.
But it seems like only around a third of people get the message. This elite group instinctively understands what it means to mean something in the democratic process and is perfectly willing to forgo the easy, common pleasures of political inadequacy and go for the harder but more rewarding road less traveled. And these are the people who reap their just rewards for their courage and fortitude.
These are the people everyone wants to talk to. These are the people politicians court, news networks examine, talk shows try to get on as often as they can, and learned people write volumes of thoughtful analysis attempts to predict.
They are, in fact, what modern democracy is all about. They are its heart, its mind, its soul, and most importantly, its voting hand.
They are the people who swing.
They are the swing voters, and in modern democracy, they are the only people who count.
Why should any politician listen to a word his party loyalists say? Those sixty six percenters who will absolutely, positively, never ever EVER vote for the other side and ergo also votes the exact same party, every single time, unfailing and unfaltering.
And worst of all, unthinking, uncritical, undemanding, and completely unimportant.
These people actually volunteer for irrelevancy. By simply abandoning the notion of political choice and simply voting for the party they have always voted for, by choosing a side and sticking with it come what may, they reduce politics to nothing but a sports team and political activity to nothing but “Rah Team A! Boo Team B!”.
As a result, in the minds of all politicians, these people are nothing more than wallpaper, or at best, purely cannon fodder. They are taken as completely for granted as being taken for granted can be said to go. Politicians pay less attention to them than a NASCAR driver does to the faces of the fans whipping past at 200 miles an hour.
And yet, nobody is forcing them to take this position. They take it, and maintain it, entirely of their own free will. Perhaps when they were younger, they bothered to keep an open mind on all things. But with age comes weariness, and freedom takes energy.
Best to just remember what team you support and show up on game day wearing the right colored jersey and otherwise don’t give it a bit of thought. Right?
After all, it’s only freedom and democracy. It’s not something important, like television, or hard candy, or blankets you can wear like clothes.
But maybe they want to change. Maybe they want to stop being the turtles supporting yet another King Yertle.
Maybe, in fact, you see a little of yourself in the description I am offering, and are wondering if it is possible to leave the camp of the unimportant and join the camp of the shining, wonderfully relevant movers and shakers.
Yes you can! And it is very simple, although by no means very easy.
You simply have to abandon all political parties.
And when I say abandon, I mean completely. You have to do your best to banish them from your mind, to remove them from your thinking entirely.
You must forget whatever party you usually support. You owe them nothing. They are the exact people who have been taking you for granted all these years. You don’t have to be loyal to them. It is not like they have been loyal to you.
Even harder, you must forget the party you usually hate. People will give up their loves before they give up their hates every time. But you cannot hope to be free if you eliminate all possibilities but one.
You must also forget worrying about who is going to win. You exert exactly the same amount of force on the system whether you vote for the winners or not. You wouldn’t respect a supposed sports fan who always roots for whatever team is winning at the time, would you?
Then how can you respect a voter who wants to vote for the winner?
Most importantly, you must abandon the notion that voting for a small party means “throwing your vote away”. Both capitalism and democracy are served best by having the most competition that the market can bear. Having only two options is nowhere near good enough.
All this abandonment of archaic Team A versus Team B thinking will not be easy. We human beings are a deeply tribal species, and the urge to pick a side and join a team and support that team come what may is very strong in us. In order to become a swing voter, you have to abandon the comfort and security we feel when we are part of a strong tribal group and stand alone, tribeless and exposed, and decide for ourselves what we believe and who best represents those beliefs.
And be willing to change our allegiance at any moment, despite the tribal voices in our minds who accuse us of being disloyal, equivocal, flighty, or lost in the cold.
Only then can enough people make the politicians work hard enough for their votes that they might have to actually represent the majority from now on.
Only true post-party politics can lead to the rise of true democracy, where the people truly rule, instead of merely being asked which politician might screw them over less every four years or so.
Only if we are willing to walk away from team based politics and look the politicians in the eye and say “Convince me.” will we be able to turn democratic government truly into the will of the people.
Picking a political party is as meaningless as picking numbers for a lottery or picking which horse to bet on at the track.
Decide what you believe in, what you trust, what you want to see happen, and only when you are sure of that do you even glance at the menu of options before you.
Walk away from the chains that bind you, and you can be part of making your democracy, and through it your world, a much better place.
You just have to be willing to swing.