The Party That Killed Democracy (Part 1)

By David Ayliffe

The demise of Western Democracy has been predicted in various ways over the years. It all started I think with The Party, or at least a Party.

Remember that party when there was lots of booze and other things and people dancing and having a wonderful time that some of them wouldn’t remember. (A sentence that begins and ends with the same word, really. Now there’s a great epanadiplosis for you, eh what?)

Well it was at that aforementioned party that there was a guy who brought a karaoke machine and wouldn’t let anyone else pick the songs? How dare he!

We vote someone in as our elected representative but if they are in a political party then you can be sure that their allegiance will be to the people operating the karaoke machine and no-one else.

And that explains it all. Basically that’s what political parties have done to democracy. What started as a noble experiment in Ancient Greece – where citizens gathered to debate important issues while snacking on olives – has somehow devolved into a system where party loyalty trumps (sorry) common sense faster than you can say “toe the party line.”

In Australia we’ve seen the rise of the “Teals” – independent candidates who supported climate action in what had been safe Liberal Party seats. Curiously the Teals were women candidates because when the Party Machine operating women rarely get to see the songs, let alone choose them.

They were labelled the “Teal” candidates, because when you combine the colour blue, not as “I’m feeling blue,” or even “the blues” – the traditional colour of the Liberal party – with their “green” views on the climate and you get a beautiful blue-green ocean, or a turquoise gemstone. Sweet isn’t it.

Writing now in what we call the Festive season with Christmas and New Year holidays I’m not feeling very festive at all. With global politics as they are, and nasty little people invading other countries to kill as many people as they can and claim land as their own, I’m feeling quite Gloomy with a capital G.

In America, the world has watched amazed as a man with a definite criminal record and a very questionable integrity has been elected again as President of the United(?) States of America. What on earth have they been drinking at their Party? As I’m writing he is talking about reclaiming the Panama Canal and annexing Canada and Greenland. Whoopee! And as I wrote, TIME magazine in their great wisdom put him on their front cover as Person of the Year. Hallucinogens anyone?

Democracy was birthed as as a noble experiment in Ancient Greece – where citizens gathered to debate important issues while snacking on olives – but it has somehow devolved into a system where party loyalty trumps common sense faster than you can say “toe the party line.”

Britain’s great stand up comedian, drinker and war-time leader Winston Churchill quoted another quipster when he said in Parliament:

“Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time…”

I don’t think Democracy is the worst form of Government, but it would be nice if we got it right from time to time.

In Australia, we’ve perfected the art of making democracy simultaneously mandatory and mildly disappointing. We don’t get a choice not to vote, which I think is a good thing. It is a genuine responsibility to elect those who lead us and if we don’t vote we have no right to hold them to account.

We may not have perfected our Democracy down under, but we have our famous democracy sausages at polling stations. Local schools, charities and service clubs bring out their barbecues and raise money for their causes whilst selling us a sausage in bread. Perfect except that they’re starting to taste suspiciously like the promises our politicians make – mostly filler with mysteriously processed bits that nobody wants to examine too closely.

The party system has turned our representatives into something resembling a high school clique – you certainly wouldn’t recommend parliamentary debate to students studying the art of speech writing or for that matter, social behaviour.

So we vote for Henry Bloggs thinking he will be a good representative. But Henry is a newcomer to politics. He was in local government for a while which he joined just after his first shave, and his election to the higher ranks was guaranteed when Party heirarchs saw his looks and talent as something to nurture.

The moment Henry is elected – did you notice I chose a man for my fictitious example – there is a reason for that. So the moment Henry gets elected, he suddenly develops an uncanny ability to agree with everything the party says, after all he doesn’t want to just be a humble representative for you and me. He wants to be cream at the top of the coffee, the icing on our cakes.

Take the Party Machine out of it and you suddenly might find that Henry wasn’t as good a choice as someone else would have been.

The Party disease is pretty much on the nose now, that’s Aussie for “it stinks”, if you ask me. What, you didn’t?

Take the UK, where the Parliament looks increasingly like a reality TV show minus the entertainment value. Question Time has become less about actual questions and more about who can make the most convincing “shocked and appalled” face while their opponent speaks. And that’s not just the UK. It’s like watching a group of method actors all auditioning for the role of “Outraged Citizen #3.”

Have you ever watched a TV news report to see beside and behind the Minister the heads of support people nodding like bobble heads dolls in full agreement with the exciting news being announced or the shock horror being exposed.

Cross the ocean and then there’s America, or should I say there WAS America. There the two-party system has turned political discourse into the world’s most expensive team sport. Red versus Blue – sure don’t they need Teals there! – with all the nuance of a sledgehammer hitting a watermelon. They’ve somehow managed to make Ancient Rome’s political intrigue look straightforward by comparison. At least when Caesar got stabbed, he knew who his enemies were—nowadays, politicians get metaphorically backstabbed by their own party members while they tweet about unity.

The real kicker? These parties were supposed to make democracy more efficient, like how carpooling is supposed to reduce traffic. Instead, they’ve created a gridlock of ideas where actual solutions get stuck behind a parade of party-approved talking points. It’s as if we’ve taken the concept of representative democracy and added an unnecessary layer of corporate middle management. In Trump’s White House the middle and senior management will no doubt start falling again as they did last time, Pins in the Bowling Alley of life.

In the end, our modern democracy resembles less the noble Athenian ideal and more a chaotic office party where everyone’s fighting over the last slice of pizza while pretending to enjoy mandatory team-building exercises. The party system hasn’t just stuffed our democracy sausage – it’s changed the recipe entirely, replacing meat with meetings and substance with soundbites.

But hey, at least we still get actual sausages on election day in Australia. Though lately, they’re starting to taste a lot like broken promises: overpriced, under-delivered, and leaving a strange aftertaste that lingers long after you’ve made your choice.

In my next I’m going to talk about one of my great heroes. A Teal, before Teals were Teals. An independent who was truly a man of great integrity and understood what representative democracy was all about.

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This article was originally published on David’s Substack.

Also by David Ayliffe: Netflix Robodebt Australia’s War Against The People

 

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