016: Double Disillusion (A Tragic’s Tragedy)

ennui, n.
A feeling of utter weariness and discontent resulting from satiety or lack of interest; boredom.

Those who know me would know that I am what is referred to in certain circles (that is to say, mainstream society, or most of the voting public) as a political nerd, or even a political tragic. Even those who don’t really know me would probably come to a similar conclusion – the very existence of my personal blog and my writing for iElect is probably testament to this. So like every political tragic in this country, I got excited when the election was called. And like every political tragic in this country, I’ve been driven near mad by how unexciting, unimportant, uninspiring, un, un-everything this election is.

Ennui is a word which could have been invented, Shakespeare-esque, for the very purpose of describing this election. The level of discourse, from the voting public, the media and the politicians themselves is utterly maddening. Previous elections have suffered from one or even two of these symptoms, but never all at once and never all at this level. To hear young people saying that they “don’t really care about politics” in a country with compulsory voting is frustrating – but these days I can completely sympathise with the people saying this.

In his understated appearance – he was easily and sadly the quitest of the five panelists – on QandA a few weeks ago, Waleed Aly (in my opinion one of Australia’s finest political analysts) said that this was the least important election in decades, if not Australia’s history. And initially I reacted against that statement. But the more I thought about it the truer it got. And with each passing day it’s become more and more true. Aly was talking in that instance about the fact that the government’s policy positions had, to an unprecedented degree been not only influenced but dictated by the opposition’s (a trend solidly established during Gillard’s first two weeks in office), but that was only the tip of the iceberg. Every week has been another bite into the most rotten political apple imaginable. A debate so pathetic, processed and dry that even politicians from the two major parties were joking about how terrible it was by that Monday’s QandA. A second “debate” involving “dialogue” with “undecided” voters at the Rooty Hill RSL which – well, the inverted commas probably tell the whole story there. A legitmate question on the the Coalition’s internet program – “What is a megabit?” – which was laughed off, something which was ignored by all but Australia’s internet community, the biggest group of which (the self-proclaimed “internet libertarians” of Whirlpool) are single-issue voters opposing Labor on the filter alone. An obsession with the media on how terrible the media have been at creating discussion of how terrible the media have behehelelloalalahahahahahharrrgghghh it’s all too much.

Stop the presses! The two-party-preferred poll numbers switched to 52-48 for a day, and now they’re back to 51-49! What does that mean? Absolutely nothing, but that won’t stop the national media from putting it on their front pages in lieu of actual discussion for yet another day (with a piece on what Gillard’s recent prediliction for pinstripe suits means for Australia’s future on page 6 – page 4 if it’s a Murdoch).

Just end it now, please. Let it all end.

http://www.ielect.com.au/?p=672

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