The problem with politicians and our perception of them

I have a laundry list of issues with politics and politicians in general. But, today I want to focus on image, or how we perceive our politicians.

The problem is a story in four acts.

Firstly, modern politicians spend a lot of their time crafting an image of themselves in the public. So much so, that people tend to care more about that image than the person or even the policy. You need not look much further than how the average person who talks about politics tends to label policies or people as "left" or "right", and how these people somehow tend to find themselves always on the same side of the argument as their current favorite politician.

As I've said before, it is just statistically impossible that so many people actually share so many key interests and concerns on political policies. And, it really becomes obvious when you start realizing that politician's are often doing a mix of undoing their own predecessors work, or carrying out the old policies their opponents had once suggested.

Take the license plates in Ontario. Everyone seemed very charged on the topic. And many seemed to presume that the current faulty license plates were some Liberal fiasco. But, the truth is, the current license plates were designed and implemented by a prior Conservative administration. And wasting time and money on changing something as lame as license plates would actually align better with a Liberal platform in the first place. But, because it was floated by a Conservative government leader, the entire thing has become part of that Conservative image.

And that is the second part of the story. After crafting the image, the people tend to focus on the image over the substance. This causes problems when messaging runs at odds with the image.

Which is act 3. Politicians aren't this image they craft of themselves. And, inevitably they violate the image.

Which leads to the closing act; everyone does and thinks whatever they want because they will feel justified either way.

This is generally a rather pointless statement. But, during this pandemic it has become rather more important. You see, trying to manage a crisis like this, where you really need people to act a certain way, requires a consistent message. When you tell citizens to stay home and that this is medical guidance you should be following but then you go to the cottage, or visit your daughters?

Well, suddenly people kind of stop giving two shits about what you said, if what they really want for themselves is what you did.

People never cared about you or your policy. They cared, as they always have, how they can incorporate what they get from your image into their own lives. And people have confirmation bias. If I say "I'm Conservative" and I see my Conservative leader say something, I say "yeah, that makes sense". When I later see my Conservative leader do the exact opposite, what I do depends on awful lot on my current situation.

A few months into isolation however, and I think most people are on the same page. They want out. They see their Premiere (and also their Prime Minister) violating their own recommendations. More than likely they think something along the lines of "Well, I'm going to be careful and not take any needless risks. Sure we're still in lock down, but things have gotten better".

And this is just crazy stupid because there are no guidelines on what "careful" is, because the only guidance in most parts of the country is still that you shouldn't be going out.

But, confirmation bias. I want to be out. I see Liberal leader Justin Trudeau going to the cottage or a I see Conservative leader Doug Ford going to the cottage and seeing his family. I don't need to see anything more than that. As a human being I'll find any rationale, and a powerful figurehead doing what I want to do is enough for most human beings to rationalize whatever they want.

The longer we ignore the science the longer this will drag on.