Baba Yaga

It would seem that politics are more difficult without a boogeyman. In fact the idea that politics as a race is rather misnamed as there is no run toward something, it is a run away from something usually, the proverbial boogeyman of the other side. Politics require some form of straw man from which all forms of evil stem to be overcome by voting a certain way.

In our just finished Canadian federal and Ontario provincial elections the straw man was Orange Man Bad himself Donald Trump. Each of these elections was won by the party running against the US President, one each from the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party. In the world that I live in there is a principle that it is not for you to change anyone else, the only person that you can change is yourself. Sadly the purpose of the political boogeyman s the exact opposite of this. Stay the same and try to change (blame) everything else.

I have never had the experience personally that this works in my own life. Nor have I seem it work in the personal lives of others. There is an understanding with this principle, we are accountable, to our family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances but mostly we are accountable to ourselves. The old adage, to thine own self be true.

I recall when I worked for a large American company as a sales rep. I had a large territory and sold their top product lines to exclusive clients. The company thought I was odd in that I put my principles before making them money. They could not understand that for me, looking after the best interests of my customer ensured they trusted my recommendations. I would never denigrate the competition, only due my best to separate myself and my products and services. Competitive sales reps would slam me, my company and any others that were competing for the sale. Let’s say there were five companies competing for the business. Four of the five would have three companies slamming them as the boogeyman, one would have four, and that would be me as the rest told dark stories about how bad the experience was with us.

So here’s the point. The venue does not matter, it could be politics, business or anything really. At the end of the day the positive person, the one who tells the story themself, goes home and sleeps well knowing they are doing the right thing. The other, may sleep well if they are narcissistic or psychotic, either caring only about themselves or not caring about anything, or they may not. When I sleep the only person who knows what’s in my dreams is me and I am alright with them.

But let us look at the world of politics for a moment. I read an article this morning by Bernie Sanders, a US Senator. He began with a call to peace, that the divisions we were experiencing at the hands of political masters and their compliant media must stop. That we must put aside our differences and move forward, together. And take on the true enemy, the rich! And then he set up his straw men Elon Musk, Larry Ellison, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg. These men have more wealth than 92% of the country, he argues, and this is really bad.

We need a government that will ensure these men pay their fair share, or some such nonsense. Just vote for us. Right? I am certain you have heard that before. It is not that we cannot remember that only a few months ago that other party was in power yet they did nothing about the rich then. And why you may ask? The straw men they set up are the ones paying the political freight.

Bernie is not the only one who does this, obviously. As mentioned earlier, the past Canadian federal election was won by creating a straw man. While the opposition talked about building a better Canada, the winners talked about taking the fight to the straw man. We are the only party that can stand up to him, our opposition is just the same as him, listen to their words.

And we had the same argument from our eventual provincial election here in Ontario. It was not really about the future, argument was give me the mandate to go kick this guys ass. Like a province has any influence over a nation. But people buy these arguments. They can not look at the principled message of what we will bring to benefit you in the future, the straw man message is simply about getting or retaining power.

Like the US President or not, which is not something I discuss, the messaging through the election down south was one of principle. ‘Let’s reverse the problems of the past with these steps forward. I will implement them if elected and this new status for our country will be the result. Is the message carried in a way I would? Not at all, but the core of the message is no different to the one I shared with my customers. Here’s where we are, if we do this together this will be the result. That is a bout as simple a message as you can get.

But it presupposes to things. First that they are in agreement with the current state. People are known to be delusional so that is not always a given. Next is that they trust that the future state can be reached with the plan. This calls for trust which can only be built over time. It is why in business I always put my customer needs ahead of mine. Repetition of this behaviour eventually leads to trust.

Will that ever be the case in politics? Will politicians actually put our needs ahead of their own? I think there are some that do, sadly they are the easiest of straw men to attack, simply because they are so different.