Left voters’ emotional support for opposition parties is sentimentality, not meaningful politics

Evidence

I admit that, emotionally and unthinkingly, I will find myself supporting the “left” parties when the results come in tomorrow night. Yes, I want to see Galloway give Oona King a kicking, yes I would love to see Letwin lose his seat. But only in exactly the same way that I want to see X contestant beat Y contestant in Big Brother; it really is only sentimentality to pretend that this spectacle has much consequence. This will always be the case in liberal democracy at the best of times, but especially so in a country which has an electoral system so fundamentally corrupt and unjust. Hari is right that, in the Eighties, 56% of the electorate voted for left parties, but because the vote was split between Labour and the Lib Dems, the Tories were allowed to maintain their reign of terror. But that is an argument for urgent reform of the electoral system, not for voting New Labour. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1396

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s broader interest in democratic decay and electoral critiques found in sources like Base Nation and The New Crusades on how formal politics masks structural power. — connects to: Emotionality aids rather than disrupts political reasoning and democratic life. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1660; Emotionality aids rather than undermines democratic deliberation; Passions and affects, not rationality, secure allegiance to democratic values — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 433
• SEED: Angle: the Big Brother analogy for electoral spectacle — how affect is recruited into a game whose outcomes are structurally foreclosed — could anchor an essay on political sentimentality in declining democracies.

Broader Connections

• Emotionality aids rather than disrupts political reasoning and democratic life. #contradicts (0.85) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1660
• Emotionality aids rather than undermines democratic deliberation #contradicts (0.85)
• Passions and affects, not rationality, secure allegiance to democratic values #contradicts (0.80) — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 433