Politics Now: A Satire

How peculiar for the word politics to be sidelined, bastardised to its referred other — reduced to its mere appearance. Politics, in fact, is no more — what exists now is ‘politics’ that which we can mention but cannot use. Let’s make the analytic distinction clear for those in doubt:

Use: In politics, democratically elected politicians with the best interest of the country at heart meet to discuss, influence and govern according to their political ideology.

Mention: ‘politics’ is what remains now that actual politics has been destroyed and taken advantage of by so-called politicians and their so-called political movements interested only in power, fickle agendas and money.

Today, ‘politics’ is made of the buffoon-faced, power-hungry, crude, immature, unpredictable and completely ideology-less Madame Tussaud-gone-wrong mannequins which inhabit the houses of parliament around the world. I am talking BoJos, 0star-movements, Save(me)nis, Boo-lsonaros and Donald Dumps that have sprung up like mycotic nail fungi around the world. How the stars have aligned or rather mis-aligned (one has already fallen off and crash-landed in Europe) is something that perhaps baffles most, let alone those pesky astrologers who reassured us Neptune retrograde would be gracing us with our usual sulky wet bank holiday… Instead, we are sitting here, hot and bothered, in this scorching mess of incendious political moves, burnt up Amazons and depleted oxygen reserves.

The planet is on fire? Let’s play political games instead and use the ‘colonialist’ card (says the white male far-right president) Sounds weird? Hah, a Victorian museum of oddities would be at a loss if compared to the open exhibit of actual monsters today! Brexit looms? Let’s play who’s badder of them all — eeny meeny miny mo, catch a tory by the toe — wait, I can’t find them, there’s no one in parliament. Tick tock tick tock Corbyn dressed as Alice in Wonderland’s white rabbit scrambles to find a window for any form of legislation: ‘I’m late, I’m late!’ What does one do when the long-fought-for democracy crumbles like a tea-soaked biscuit in the high stormy waters of the besieged Great Britain castle? Surely the moat will be enough to keep those barbarian mainlanders away. So wait, an unelected prime minister just called for the suspension of parliament right before the spook-fest that will be Halloween this year. It totally isn’t an affront to democracy right? It isn’t really about ‘taking control over our laws from the EU’. Wait — so why is the very institution created to govern and make laws being shut down? Since the whole Brexit telenovela, the once proudly ‘moderate’, ‘tolerant’, ‘politically stable’, ‘example for all nations’ land has rather become the go-to place for racism, buffoonery, circus-esque exhibits of alpha-male power, bigotry and now, lawlessness. Britain, ehm, the World used to make fun of Italians saying ‘oh Italian politics with your Berlusca’s and his bunga-bunga circuses — what a mess you are!’ Now everyone’s phoning him armed with note-pad eager to study his personality profile (was he ENTJ or?) frantically trying to understand the precocious mind of the now-well established political elite. Apparently ‘We’re All Living in Berlusconi’s World Now’.

And so perhaps it is no coincidence that on the same day BoJo announced his supremacy over parliament, his bffs in Italy casually waited for yet another (is this the 67th time now?) government to form, perhaps this time capable of ruling its unruly “herd of sheep” as Mussolini once defined them. A political doomsday? Well, if the ideology of Great Britain is to suspend politics altogether, the Italians echo it by chanting their mantra: ‘political ideology is not ideology’ — wait isn’t that a contradiction? Nope. If you are part of the comedian-produced, web-strategist-powered anti-establishment-who-are-in-a-political-establishment (sorry for the mouthful) group self-defined as ‘populist’ — (catch your breath) then ideology is just a loose signifier that can easily be used to wipe their annoying ethical thoughts with. What kills politics isn’t bad politics, its politics without ideology. Politics without thought or substance. Politics that, devoid of its ideological substrata, shrivels and atrophies so that its body physically cannot move from the throne of power. How else could you possibly explain how a populist movement in power with the far-right League up until minutes ago is now, nonchalantly walking over to their arch-enemies side and buddying up with the left-wing PD? Wait — did I get that right? The party (oops ‘movement’) that governed Italy for the past 14 months with Salvini’s League that used to say “The PD? I categorically exclude any alliance. I hope to have enough votes to be able to ignore them” is now playing footsie and smooching with them? And the PD agreed? Of course, when there is no ideology there also isn’t any politics — when something is formless, liquid, like Bauman had already figured a while back, its viscous and unpredictable form insinuates itself in every nook and cranny until it creates the amorphous blob or rather teratoma which grows (hair teeth and all) on what remains of politics. What message does this send to the population? What impact does this have on politics? If a political party, movement or whatever it chooses itself to be named can, from one day to the next, flip itself over and chamaleontically reverse their political agenda, then it simply means that they never had a political agenda to begin with.

Politics is no more. The dangerous UV (undemocratic violence) emitted by contemporary ‘politicians’ has transformed an already fragile, dubious and precarious democratic system into a cancerous growth spurting and spitting hatred, dominance and nonsensical mockery onto its plagued population. The planet is burning, our resources are dwindling, ecosystems are being destroyed and our brutal food industry is harming our animals including those of the human kind. What truly matters is cast aside in favour of petty policies and theatrical demonstrations of alpha power. Politics would concern itself with implementing radical changes in the way we see, interact, inhabit and treat ourselves and our only planet. Too bad ‘politics’ is too concerned with talking about itself.