Absurdity

Nov 07 2024 - Nov 07 2024

Hate VS Hope: 2024-11-07

We all saw what happened down south this week. Hate won. I'm not being hyperbolic in this, the messaging from each party was blatantly clear, one was anger and fear, one was hope and empathy. There was a lot to be upset on both sides fighting for different ideas of rights and freedoms, but one side latched onto that a lot more than the other. Now I don't think empathy and compassion need to die, there is still a way forward with caring about others. We shouldn't need to get people angry to get out to the polls. Two kinds of people out there, the ones who say I suffer so you should have to, and those who say I suffered, so I want to make sure you don't. I like to think I'm part of the latter, and I want leaders and a society that feels the same.

When I was young I felt the world was slowly progressing, we learn about how minorities gained equal rights, black people, indigenous, gay, women, etc. Women getting equal pay laws, people being allowed to vote of all creed, to marry, to have bank accounts on their own, being told it's okay to be different, to beat to their own drum. Like we were drifting into acceptance of everyone now, that future generations would be less likely to be bullied for stepping out of line. It felt like over the last 100 years there was so much progress we learned about, how it was hard fought steps forward, and it felt like we kind of made it over the hardest parts and now it was just . I remember end of high school gay people getting the right to marry, it felt like the world was becoming more enlightened, accepting, progressive. I came out of high school feeling like the world had transformed and was going to continue to do so, so many strong movements, not just Canada but the whole world was shifting to a better place, that people would be more educated, more caring.

I guess that scared a lot of people who wanted to go back 50/100 years. It feels like why do we keep having to fight these battles, can't we all just be okay with each other. Education seems to be going back, science denial is now in vogue for all kinds of concepts, critical thinking seems to be going out the window. People don't read everything through, just scan and try to get the gist of things. Headlines dominate, lucky if people read past the first paragraph a lot of times, they don't seek out context or other sources.

A surprising amount of Gen Z voted for Trump this election. The internet has shown us ragebait garners the most views, the most engagement. Hate, anger, rage, fear are easy to fall to. Same with votes it seems, rage is a great motivator to get people out to vote. The right seem full of fear and rage and that keeps them active and voting a lot more than hope, especially it seems when that hope isn't coupled with change. Obama was hope and change, Harris was hope, but needed to channel that "feminine rage" on behalf of women and supporters, but there wasn't that feeling of change but more of "There's hope to not get worse" but we needed "Hope to get better". It feels their 2 party system hurts them, the left and centre are together in 1 party, and they compromise with each other to make it work, which loses a lot of passion and results in lower vote turnouts. We are lucky in Canada to have a multi party system, where we learn to work together and compromise more, and I don't want to lose that.

This election is not just limited to the Americans south of us, but gives us a glimpse to ourselves. If anger and hate will be a strong way to get a lot of votes out over hope. Right now it seems Trudeau is doing the same as Harris, giving us hope not that things will get better, but that they won't get worse. People are wanting change, whether it gets better or worse, and ignoring that can be quite costly. Don't campaign on not being as bad as the other person, but on what change that you can be. It doesn't seem like Trudeau will be able to pivot to being that hopeful change, he can come across as progressive, but not change. Singh might be able to fill that role, but it would be a hard fight to convince many he is a strong enough force of change and hope. I leave wondering how the American elections will affect ours, if Trump is terrible it may scare people away from Pierre, but if he is moderate in the first year that association between the two of them won't scare voters away and he could easily become the image of change Canadians go for.

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