A familiar pang

(中文在下方)

Sadly, I felt the all too familiar pang of disappointment yesterday at the DPP’s poor showing at the local elections, although I felt more sorry for the cat who was curled up on the sofa and unusually quiet as the results rolled in.

I am no stranger to such disappointment, coming as I do from an innately conservative country where the ‘establishment’ has been building on itself for hundreds of years. 

In the UK it is the establishment of the rich and titled, public school educated so called elite. In Taiwan it is the KMT and those used to wielding power during the troubled times of Martial Law and in the years after as that rich and privileged strata of society retained power by dint of influence and money. 

So there tends to be a strong demographic at work as the older generation generally display a deference to the establishment, for whatever reason, which is something I have never understood but is nevertheless true. One essential in Taiwan is to lower the voting age to eighteen, but, of course, the establishment will resist this. 

The cat and I went to the polling place early yesterday and judging by the number of older people voting and several wheelchairs, my first comment was that it did not look good for the DPP. 

The turnout was low which is no surprise as these local votes, like the local elections in the UK or the midterms in the US, do not spark as much enthusiasm as they should, but that is a fact of life and something you need to accept.

That said, voter apathy among young people is an ongoing issue with many disillusioned with older generation politics and a sense of helplessness, or just a lack of interest, leads to them just not bothering to vote. This is a global problem and Taiwan is no different to many other democracies. I’m personally in favour of mandatory voting although even those countries which have it seldom enforce it vigorously. Australia being perhaps the most famous of these.  

I’ve had my fair share of disappointment with the stupidity of Brexit and the Brits voting a classic establishment figure like Boris Johnson into office with a huge majority. Both of which I found profoundly depressing.  

Whether voting for the establishment is caused by dogma, habit, or peer pressure the only thing to do is keep interested, get out and vote and don’t allow setbacks reduce your enthusiasm to keep the establishment orthodoxy on the backfoot.

Tinkerty Tonk...

其實想想是蠻令人悲傷的，我對民進黨在地方選舉中的糟糕表現，幾乎感到一種非常熟悉的失望之痛。不過我家那頭蜷縮在沙發上看電視，並且在開票結果不斷更新時異常安靜的貓，應該感到更加難過。

我對這種失望並不陌生，因為我來自一個天生保守的國家，那裡的“建制派”已經建立了數百年。在英國，它是富人、有頭銜、受過公立學校教育的所謂菁英體系。在台灣，那是國民黨和那些習慣於在戒嚴的困難時期，以及之後的歲月中掌握權力的人，他們因為財富和特權，靠著影響力和金錢保留了權力。

因此無論出於何種原因，從年齡層來看，老一代通常都表現出對所謂“建制派”的尊重，這是我從未理解但仍然是事實的現實。這次投票，台灣的一項重要改變是將投票年齡降至 18 歲，但當然，建制派會抵制這一做法。

我們投票當天一大早就去了投票站，從投票所外的老年人和幾個輪椅來看，我的第一評論是，這對民進黨來說不太好。

投票率低並不奇怪，因為地方性的選舉，如英國的地方選舉或美國的期中選舉，並不會激發選民應有的熱情，這是事實，也是你需要接受的。

這也就是說，年輕人對投票冷漠是一個持續存在的問題，許多人對老一輩的政治感到失望，無助感或缺乏興趣，導致他們根本懶得去投票。 這是一個全球性問題，台灣與許多其他民主國家沒有什麼不同。 我個人贊成強制投票，不過即使有強制投票的國家也很少大力執行，澳洲可能是其中最著名的。

我對英國脫歐的愚蠢行為，還有英國選民以絕大多數票，將像強生這樣的經典建制人物推上權力高峰感到失望，這兩件事都讓我感到非常沮喪。

無論投票給建制派是因為長久以來的信條、習慣還是同輩壓力造成的，你唯一必須做的就是保持興趣，去投票，不要讓挫折降低你的熱情，這樣才能讓建制派的傳統處於落後地位。