Zombies, saints and political despondency

I dread the upcoming federal and provincial elections like winter, dental surgery, a colonoscopy, or a CRA audit. The intensifying despair is poised to overtake me.

The world is polarized. Far right/far left.

Populism is like a wolf at the door. Trade barriers that took the international community decades to construct are being dismantled under the banner of protectionism. The environmental movement is under siege because blue-collar jobs are at stake. Our leaders are uncloaked for harassment, misogyny, deceit, self-indulgence, entitlement… and the list goes on.

We tend to favour three political leader genres: the saviour, the corpse and the old dog. This has become a problem in Canada, but provincially it’s been the habit since 1949.

When the arse is just about completely out of it, as they say, we rally around our saviors. They are akin to St. George: flamboyant, vested in shining armour and set upon a bristling steed, lance at the ready. And with the slaying of each dragon, up comes the visor of the closed helmet — the blinding glint of sun on perfect upper central incisors. Front page Telegram stuff. But otherwise we are told that fearless leader is unavailable for comment through his or her feckless PR lackey. Then, upon sudden and dramatic retirement from political life (cited: more time with family) it’s off to corporate boards, book deals, development transactions, advisory positions and even (most hideous and insidious) — hack journalism disguised as partisan insight.

Then there’s the political corpse. The popularity of the corpse genre is largely inexplicable. Perhaps they float in on torrent of backwash once the saviour’s fire has been extinguished. Perhaps there are a great number of “Walking Dead” and “Z Nation” fans among us. (They always bring out the vote.) The hallmark of many political corpses is that they bear the same name as laudable former statesmen, or that they were deputy-premier/ senior cabinet minister at the going down of the sun, or that they were the head of some union for just way too long. Some are reincarnations. Still others have acquired shapeshifting skills, metamorphosing (like characters from the epic Gilgamesh) into countenances able entrance the general population by their vacuous gaze.

Finally, there is the old dog genre. Once beloved, they have simply been underfoot for so long that we cannot garner the gumption to have them put down. At the dinner table we talk about the legs or bowels going, or the mind fading… about whether or not the decision to euthanize is about them or about us. We postpone and postpone until it’s too late. They die and take the whole damned party down with them. The problem, as far as I can surmise, is that political parties are exclusive clubs, and most of us have the very sensible mindset (as Groucho Marx opined) not to belong to any club that would have us. The political process is about reward for loyalty and has very little to do with competence. Otherwise the three ohso-sad party choices we have for which to cast our vote — and I do mean cast in the sense “to throw away” — would take the obvious enlightened business approach and go out in search of a proven, effective, freshfaced, remarkable leader that would rebuild respect for the party and win the next election.

But they don’t. They never do. They just never ever do.

It’s the political machinery that only looks from within and never from without.

I will vote. Our young men fought for that right. It’s the vomiting and diarrhea that I will have for days after the election that I most dread.