REPUBLISHED: A political analysis of the Progressive Alliance

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

The following text is adapted from a speech I made to the inaugural convention of the URL, on July 30th this year. We are struck by the way that the Progressive Alliance leader, Baron Davinescu, seems to have been personally offended by this text. He cited this analysis as one of 3 points which meant the Progressive Alliance could not work with the URL, alongside one accusation of lying and one of excessive telling-the-truth.

We are struck by the fact that this confirms one of the points of the analysis - that the Progressive Alliance have an "anti-politics", where debate around principle is replaced by "team sports". Where to criticise the principles of your opponent is indistinguishable from a supposed lie or breach of confidence. This attitude, which sees political polemic as indistinguishable from personal beef, does not make political debate purer, but drags everything down into personal beef. And this one reason why Talossans increasingly shy away from politics.

In response to this analysis, the Progressive Alliance cannot seem to form a riposte in kind; only splutter about our personal unpleasantness. Accordingly, this analysis seems to get more accurate as time goes on, so we reproduce an amended version of it here.

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There was a phenomenon in French politics of the 20th century where, since conservative politics had a bad name from years of monarchy and dictatorship, even the Right-wing parties called themselves "left" or "radical" or some such. We seem to have that issue in this country, too. Thus the main conservative party calls itself "Progressive".

During the last Cosa, a certain Cabinet minister was approached with an offer to join the main opposition party.  Hardball politics, but not outside the bounds of acceptable conduct!

But the offer was not made on the basis of political principle. It was not made on an appeal to dissatisfaction with the Government's record or political stance. No, it was made on the basis that... the Progressive Alliance's internal culture was "fun". I believe the actual comparison was made to "how things used to be in the Talossan National Congress". Only without the sex pest.

I realised that previously I referred to this party as "conservative". I did so on the basis that, whatever changes are suggested to Talossan institutions or structure, they're agin' it. But that's not actually the right word. The right word is apolitical.

This party is, as I see it, not a political party in the way the URL is. They are not held together by shared politics, but by friendships, by its internal culture. In a party which is a "social club" writ large, it's not a surprise that the party should have no distinctive politics of its own - or rather, that its politics should "default" to the preferences of whoever its most confident member is.

And an "apolitical party" produces an "apolitical politics" for Talossa. Confused? What I mean is: a politics that essentially holds that Talossa should not have politics. That debate about different visions of Talossa's future, its raison d'être (sorry, raziun d'estar), its institutional nature, is divisive and unseemly - even that it "drives away prospectives" - and that elections should reduce partly to deciding a team of administrators for the next six months, and partly to one of those funny things that Talossans do to be quirky.

I believe a kind of politics which doesn't think that there should really be politics is a danger to our democracy. The leader of this party once wrote a thread discussing court action to declare party lists inorganic. In which he made an effective argument that a party vote should be a vote for a blank cheque for a leader to hand out seats to whoever puts their hand up after the votes are already in. That is an appeal for "fan-club" politics in its purest form.

There still seem some who still seem to believe Talossa was pretty much perfect in 2011, before Reunision fouled everything, up by bringing in a group of Talossans with a different vision for the nation – that is, "real" politics. And may I say, if you wanted evidence of that, it's the discomfort of seeing our King wear the Sash of the Republic. To quote from the classics: the Republicans may have been on the losing side, but history is still out over whether it was the wrong one.

In contrast, the URL defends party lists in our current system as democratic. If the voters are to hold the legislature to account, every ballot should allow voters to know who they're putting in the Cosa (with some margin for flexibility, as in the current 1/3 of the seats).

You don't need to necessarily agree with URL's formal politics – our support for democratic reforms, "min-monarchism" and the rule of law – to appreciate our stance that there should be real politics in Talossa. That a country where politically indistinguishable "clubs" or "teams" compete on the same level as high-school cliques would be boring and annoying.

[Breneir Tzaracomprada]

During the last Cosa, a certain Cabinet minister was approached with an offer to join the main opposition party.  Hardball politics, but not outside the bounds of acceptable conduct!

👀

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

One way I might actually resile from this analysis is that I'm increasingly nervous about the ability to allocate seats off-list. I think the Progressive Alliance would have had a tougher time fending off accusations that they're simply reproducing the RUMP-clique of a decade ago if the broad masses had known they wanted to put the ex-King in the Cosa.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

The pieces never came together in my head until now, but they have now.

The Progressive Alliance has no political principles, and is actively allergic to them. They're a clique, a fraternity, a "No Miestras Club" (I suppose they can have one, as the saying goes).

Baron Alexandreu Davinescu cannot argue politically. His "political attacks" are always accusations of wrongdoing, corruption and personal fault. And conversely, he cannot interpret a critique of political principle except as an impermissible, personal attack.

Because the Progressive Alliance lacks political principle they cannot imagine standing on political principle. They cannot understand why people would act in elections in any way other than to make the maximum number of people like you. Tell them what they want to hear. Smarm all over them. Make vague positive noises in a "sunny tone". They can't understand that the purpose of political debate is, in some cases, about drawing lines, about making clarifications. We don't want to make enemies, but the goal of the URL is not to make friends, but to promote the politics of Talossan democracy.

Baron Davinescu cannot argue with the above analysis so he just has to yell vaguely that it's offensive and unacceptable. Therefore, we will keep making it.