Crossing the Rubicon

Short geography lesson, for those who need it: the Rubicon is a river along the northern edge of Italy during Roman times.

Short history lesson: Julius Caesar brought the 13th Legion across the river after being ordered not to, and started a civil war in Rome in 49 BC, a civil war Caesar won.

Crossing the Rubicon became a metaphor for passing a point of no return.

And I love a metaphor.

As the federal election campaign winds up with today’s vote, I mourn the death of truth. I mean, there’s always been lying in elections and politics; promises made are often cancelled days after the votes. “Oops, we couldn’t afford that after all.”

But we’ve crossed the Rubicon in the last few years, and the Rubicon we’ve crossed is that politicians have realized that they don’t even have to pretend anymore.

Heck, I’m old enough to remember when a U.S. presidential hopeful helped to derail his whole campaign with an untimely and embarrassing scream (Democrat Howard Dean). When a frontrunner for the U.S. presidential race was torpedoed by an extramarital affair (Democrat Gary Hart).

But often, that doesn’t seem to matter anymore.

It’s even bled into our federal election, thankfully not to the extent that it has in the States.

The simple fact that U.S. evangelicals still support Donald Trump — whose personal behaviour is so far away from evangelical Christianity as to be almost comedic — hammers the point home.

People are willing to look the other way about almost any behaviour, as long as their own personal ends are being served.

The ends, tragically, do justify the means, in the eyes of many.

The problem is that those ends are so often microscopically personal — what I mean by that is the idea that votes depend on what you’re putting into my pocket, not what the nation as a whole might need.

The problem isn’t even really that people are doing exactly that all at once — perhaps they always have, in the dark recesses of their own worlds.

No, the problem is that recent political campaigns have revealed that fact so clearly to politicians. It doesn’t matter what they do or what they stand for — it’s the grift, baby. And that’s been made abundantly clear by the myriad of deals with the devil that have been made in the once great nation to the south of us.

That Rubicon has been decisively crossed, and I doubt it will come close to changing back in my lifetime — if ever. “Ignore my sins, however great, because I’ll give you this thing you want.”

Holding your nose and voting for whoever promises what you personally want may look like it works well in the short term, but long-term? It’s not governing. It’s pandering. And it only works until you’re suddenly the one who finds yourself in critical need, but without the electoral means to find help.

It almost necessarily means that those who don’t vote — or who are kept from having their votes count by economic realities or political tampering — wind up getting less attention and support from governments.

Just look at the huge focus this election on tax cuts, while keeping in mind that tax cuts only benefit those who make enough to pay taxes.

(And think about how many times you’ve heard in this campaign about organizations asking policy questions of candidates, and having those candidates feel absolutely safe in not replying at all, along with not taking part in debates that don’t suit their own ends.)

It makes me wonder if it’s bad now, what will it be in the future?

It’s not really a case of the emperor having no clothes, it’s more that the emperor and his courtiers have realized that members of the public don’t have any either.

I think I will miss the land on the other side of the river.