Anyone else notice how much harder it has become to take politics seriously?

I’m not sure exactly when things started to shift, but we, more and more, are nominating and electing candidates who could hardly be considered wise, or appealing; or even qualified.

It doesn’t seem to matter where the election takes place, but more often than not there is a candidate inspired by, or modeled after, the still-startling and successful run for the presidency of the United States.

The not-so-recent election of Donald Trump has done so little to move society’s collective wisdom forward. What it has done is, somehow, given any windbag with money and opportunity a chance to buy their way into the leadership of a political party, and then proceed to insult the electorate with visions, ideals, and explanations that cannot be supported by logic.

An election campaign is underway now in Ontario where a ruling government with years in office is fighting for more time to keep doing what they are doing. The party and the platform both carry baggage, questionable tactics, and shameful examples of ineffectiveness, but (for the most part) there is some sort of a formulated plan on how they will do what they intend to do.

It’s an interesting dilemma here as the incumbent with 15 hard-fought years of political experience is being forced to defend platforms against a candidate who clearly has no idea of policy and procedure. What he is doing, day after day — even before the writ was dropped — is trying to appeal to populace issues (those which wrangle us the most) by promising to halt, or make clever changes to the way things are done.

There is no quantifiable plan of action to this approach.

It has to be noted that Trump’s campaign platform also had few, if any, solid, thought-out, examples. It was all threats and promises. Sadly, it worked.

Sadly, this it is now a ‘steps to success’ ideology that will continue to gain momentum.

The electorate deserves more.

You cannot — or I might better say ‘should not’ — simply offer, with a wink and a smile, platitudes and promises. To do so is an affront to the people, the process, and democracy itself.

Thing is, people eat it up. How else can you explain the fore-mentioned president?

We have become too accustomed to 140 to 280 character messages delivering information and news that matters. Few people are going further to read, or further to see.

Even more interesting is how pundits and the press continue to rely on polls to form the direction, and the content, of the issues and coverage the public is presented with.

It’s pretty easy to see, given past results in pretty much any jurisdiction, that opinion polls are not even close to accurate. Yet, in the need to fill the vacuous 24-hour news cycle, it is what is most discussed, or a politician’s windy reaction to it.

In both traditional and social media, there is too much time to fill, and too much space for parties and pundits to manipulate the message.

It is hard to get answers when we are mainly questioning the questions.

It’s a conundrum, wrapped in a dilemma, and presented as standard practice; and it has become exactly that. This is the best we are served up with.

If you are not outraged, you’re not paying attention.