The People Behind the Podium
13th June 2022
Although this is a British story, the U.S. is infected with the same disease.
the same: a minor politician, surrounded by half a dozen beaming activists, thrilled at spending 5 minutes in the company of the Junior Minister for Potholes and Verges. “Residents agreed it was time to get on with the job,” they tweet, in a giddy flurry — wisely skirting over the twenty doors slammed in their faces, and the woman who set her Dobermann on them. Can having the seat of your trousers sewn back on be claimed on expenses?
Regardless of party, the image is universal. The gauchely held placards, the rictus grins. One or two people looking very serious indeed: elect Fleur de Rozarieux, your Lib Dem candidate for Abbyvale Ward — stop Brexit now. (Fleur will make herself available to help residents at all times, in between completing her A-Levels.) Labour activists follow the same blueprint, but with more colourful hair. And the promise of far greater influence over the Gaza Strip.
It’s hard not to wonder, as the various machines splutter into campaign mode for yet another election, what possesses a subsection of our fellow citizens to devote so much time to pushing leaflets through letterboxes — in exchange for little more than a selfie with Oliver Dowden, or a brief, stolen glimpse of Angela Rayner uncrossing her legs.
Maybe AOC will make you a cup of coffee and demonstrate her qualifications for being in Congress.
The young people who fall into party politics are not joining something, therefore, but escaping. They are on the run: from school or university; from their home lives; from personal disappointment; from themselves. They insert themselves into an esoteric and largely hidden fraternity, where nutty proclamations and whacky behaviour are met not just with acceptance but prestige. I asked a friend, who spent much of their youth submersed in left-wing politics, what they thought motivated their young comrades. “Oh mental illness,” came the response.