The Age of Cynic Votes

We all know politicians are devious and cynical, but can the same now be said of the electorate?

Many of those who voted for US President Donald Trump knew he was a constant liar with suspicious links to Russia, just as the conservatives' ranks in the United Kingdom know that Boris Johnson has lied and deceived during his climb into his career. In Poland, it is no secret that ruling Justice and Law Party ( PiS is filling people, misusing public media, rewarding friends and undermining the independence of courts. However, the PiS beat Poland's opposition parties in the European Parliament elections in May.

The fact that Polish, British, and American people have all chosen governments with questionable morals is a sign of what German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk described in the early 1980s as cynical “reasoning”. Sloterdijk argued that, in the absence of advances in progress, Western elites had absorbed the teachings of Enlightenment, but had implemented them in the service of narrow interest and not common good. Social problems, such as slavery, poverty, and inequality, were no longer limited to human ignorance, but showed that educated people were lacking in determination to resolve them. As Slavo Zizek has said, the ideology action today is not “they don't know, but they're doing it” It's “they know, but they're still doing it”.

In Sloterdijk's view, this cynicism began with the elite. Now we all behave like trained selfishs. Although we know how to combat inequality, they still grow. Authorism (both Russian or Chinese) treats poverty more efficiently than democracy does. Rich societies are affected by little war or refugee crises.

Major ideas promising significant social changes, whether social democracy or Christian democracy, are echoing only among the older generation. Voters not interested in populists like Trump and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who change their stated positions from one day to another, are not blind fans of power. They're just defenders of their special interests. If reducing greenhouse gas emissions means closing coal mines and coal power plants, those with interest in the coal sector will not support climate policies, just as people in wealthy areas don't care about miners in coal mines.

In Europe, the developing divide between greens and populists seems to reflect a new post-ideological axis. On both sides of the division, voters now behave as political employees, highlighting specific themes, while deliberately avoiding other themes. They have adopted the party line (such as a variety of Tuesday and right policies), which they then repeat in focus groups, on social networks and about dinner tables. Political parties no longer represent voters. On the contrary, voters represent parties, sometimes even before they are born, as demonstrated by the vests' protests.

The presidency Trump, the Brex debate in the United Kingdom and the growth of PiS and Orbane suggest an increasingly widespread loss of confidence. The vision of Eastern Europe's progress was long synonymous with the transition from communism to capitalism, but three decades of austerity measures and expectations for a better future have seriously damaged people's trust in liberal democracy. Populism calls on voters with his promise of a kind of Kopernik Revolution, overturning austerity measures as well as the prevailing assumptions of the past.

Shortly after the PIS' victory in the European Parliament's elections, where it received 45.5 per cent of the vote, the Oko.press online news page asked the Poles: “In general, 68 percent of respondents responded yes and only 24 percent said that the PiS is less selfish than its ancestors. Even among PIS voters, 38 per cent agreed that the state camera is more politicised now than it was under the direction of the Po and the PSL. When asked whether the current PPS government does more to benefit itself financially from its officials than previous PO-PSL governments, 58 percent considered PO and PSL more sincere.

However, in Polish voters' focus groups, he constantly listens to things like: “E know that the PiS is not genuine, but they care about the people. They steal and work, but at least they share things.” In other words, these voters support the PiS despite its apparent shortcomings, because they do not believe they can afford to remove a party that has benefited money and other social goods for themselves.

The theory of perspective, the model of economic behavior launched by Nobel laureates Daniel Kaehman and Amos Tversky, predicts people will become less endangered if only bad opportunities are presented. Our account depends not only on what we can acquire or lose in absolute terms, but on our current situation and expectations. When a person who expects a high payment receives less than expected, he will feel disappointment rather than satisfaction in having at least won something.

These degradations show how voters can connect to politicians such as Trump or PiS leader Jarosław Kaczynskiski. Polish, British and American voters have made political choices that they know can be dangerous because they feel they have nothing to lose and their choice options are between the negative “” and “worse”. Supporting high ideals as liberal democracy, constitutional order and freedom of the press looks like an unaffordable luxury. They are unwilling to sacrifice material benefits for abstract principles.

Who can blame? Multinational Western corporations doing business in Russia, China, and other countries have for years sacrificed liberal ideals in the name of profit. As Sloterdijk observed almost 40 years ago, cynical reasoning prevails. If the same was true of wealth, history could have resulted much differently. /Project Syndicate/ BIRN/