My all-time favourite “line to take” – that is, the set of pre-agreed talking points politicians stick to – came from general election night 2001. Tony Blair’s Labour Party was romping towards a second successive landslide, and the media was searching for a more interesting story. Turns out, it was turnout.
The percentage of people who bothered to cast a ballot fell from 71.3 per cent in 1997 to 59.4 per cent, the first (and thus far) only time it has dropped below 60 per cent since 1918. The media sensed blood, or at least a way to kick a seemingly unstoppable political movement.
At their counts or in the studio, Labour MPs and ministers were repeatedly asked for their thoughts on the low turnout, and what it said about the country, the government, and whether it might even dilute the election result. My favourite answer came from then home secretary Jack Straw who, with delightful insouciance, brushed it off as evidence of the “politics of contentment”.
Sheer brazenness aside, could this be true? Does apathy equate to happiness? It was not clear, but Labour had just secured a second full term and nobody much seemed to care. Then 9/11 happened a few months later and we all moved on. Clearly, voter turnout does matter. But there is, I fear, something worse than an indifferent electorate. One that cares a little too much.
If politics is decision making without violence, I am very much in favour. But when it congeals into the culture, and everything becomes a political act, weird things start to happen. You feel it in countries where the central political cleavage is constitutional: Unionist or nationalist in Northern Ireland, Indy or not in Scotland, Leave or Remain in England. But the phenomenon is most egregious today in the United States.
To an extent, this makes sense. One candidate for president is described as a fascist by his former colleagues and previously fomented an insurrection, the other is a normie Democrat. The stakes are high! But it is a society on the path to somewhere dark if everything, from food choices (Chick-fil-A or Whole Foods) to health decisions (to be vaccinated against Covid or prefer a higher chance of serious illness) is deemed a political one, or a placeholder for how one sees the world.
The stakes next week could scarcely be higher for the US or indeed the world. Votes matter, especially if you live in the Philadelphia suburbs. But, when everything becomes political, the space for joy and freedom of expression is narrowed. And therein lies the politics of discontentment.
Jack Kessler is chief leader writer and author of the West End Final newsletter
