The electoral movement as a sandbox: frustration and lack of vision before the election

In a news article, SVT Skåne has highlighted how people in town reason before the upcoming election. The focus of the article is block swaps, nothing strange about that per se, but the few sentences that are played make me unable to stop thinking about what it says about society right now.

The time before the election has this time become the period of powerlessness. The weeks leading up to the results are filled more and more with frustration and trepidation. Why? That the election campaign feels like a sandbox is hardly a new thought - it is well said before every election. But this year it feels stronger than in a long time. Politicians throw sand at each other instead of building something. Voters shape their opinions based on what benefits themselves right now, rather than what holds up over time. And soon, in a few weeks, this show will reach its climax.

There is still a small consolation to be had: somewhere in the world there are still pockets where democracy and values ​​that extend beyond a term of office - in fact, are the goal. Where the climate is allowed to take its place, where populism does not own the whole debate and where humanity persists. Already Plato and Polybius believed that states inevitably degenerate and succeed each other in cycles, due to human weaknesses. The thought is a little comforting – a better time will come, though perhaps not in my lifetime.

But the comfort quickly fades again. In the sandbox it is thrown to the right and left. Changing ideologies is reasonable in a changing world - but what rubs off is not that ideologies change, it's the lack of vision. A lack of a desire for something more long-term than the next term of office - and something bigger than Sweden's borders. To only think nationally feels naive when the climate, migration and security never stop at a national border anyway.

In the past it has always been easy for me to know what to vote for. Now the only reasonable thing, in my hopelessness and frustration, is to vote blank. But then my vote becomes invalid - what is really best: a vote that disappears in the statistics, or no vote at all?

I long for the time after the election. Not because I see that it will result in something of value, but because I might then avoid seeing as much sand swirling past as soon as I open a news forum. Then, just like so many others, I can put my energy where it actually makes a difference: in work, in everyday life, in conversations that build something - one small (!) step at a time. Unlike our politicians, who seem to have lost both the ability and the will to create real direction. They remain in the sandbox.

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