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The New Voter - Can we keep her for the general election?

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Comments

  • #52
    Black Menorca
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,572 ✭✭✭Black Menorca


    TommyKnocker wrote: »
    People voted in the last election for FG/Lab based on their manifesto and pre-election promises. Once FG/Lab got into power their manifesto went out the window and their promises were broken. They even stated on TV in an interview that they lied to get into power.

    How on earth is this kind of muppetry going to persuade new voters to take part in the GE. There simply is no difference between the main parties no matter who you vote for you just get more of the same and until there is a actual alternative to what we have now I see people continue to be disenfranchised with the GE thing.

    Pull your sleeves up, take ownership of your little corner and make your presence felt.

    Join an activist group, be heard, see the fruits of your labour and quit whining about the bad people in Leinster House.


  • #53
    TommyKnocker
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,829 ✭✭✭TommyKnocker


    Black Menorca wrote: »
    Pull your sleeves up, take ownership of your little corner and make your presence felt.

    Join an activist group, be heard, see the fruits of your labour and quit whining about the bad people in Leinster House.

    I am sorry, but I don't see this as an option. Call me a cynic but I don't think people who actually have the best interests of the country at heart make it into positions of influence in Irish politics and I would say the same for politics in other countries. I think that any enthusiasm is driven out of them and they become just another snout in the trough.

    I have seen the same thing in a semi state company I previously worked towards. Where new folks would be taken under the wing of the elders in the company and told/shown how things work. Couldn't have some enthusiastic noob actaully working and showing up the rest. People who did not "toe the line" were ostracised and the others would not talk to them or work with them. They were left to sit alone in the canteen etc. until eventually they either fell into line or left.

    It is my belief, as has been said in this thread earlier, that the whole root and branch of politics in Ireland needs to radically change. Parish pump politics needs to stop. The whip system needs to go, the voting system, where my vote may actually go to help somebody I did not vote for get elected through the transfer system at the behest of the party, needs to be changed. The number of TDs in the dail needs to be significantly reduced. No TDs holding onto positions in other fields as a fall back, preventing RCGs taking up the positions. No multiple pensions and no collecting pensions before pension age. No golden handshakes for bad TDs leaving their posts. An end to the old boys club and nepotism etc. etc. etc.

    Maybe in the future some of the younger generation with an abundance of enthusiasm and new ideas may take on this yoke and actually drive change in Irish politics. I do not have the energy at this time in my life to flog what I see as a dead horse, as until there are a majority of TDs who actually want a better future for all and are not just looking to line their own pockets, I don't see anything changing. After all, Turkeys do not vote for Christmas.

    At this current time I would not donate a single second of my time to any of the existing parties.


  • #54
    Steppenwolfe
    Closed Accounts Posts: 416 ✭✭Steppenwolfe


    Black Menorca wrote: »
    The marriage referendum has brought out tens of thousands of new voters from the woodwork.

    This has to be celebrated, well at least I celebrate it as a No voter.

    Its wonderful to see genuine engagement in political affairs.

    The challenge now is how can we keep their attention as we approach the General election next year?

    Harnessing this mass of new energy could revolutionise the way we do politics.

    Or, will they disappear again and turn their back on their civic duty?

    Not a chance. I presume you mean new voters who have not bothererd to engage before now. If they haven't voted before now they don't understand what politics is. Some don't even realise their vote was a political act. Some saw it as cool to be part of a popular bandwagon. Most will go back to their little lives oblivious to what's going on politically. They will carry on letting others make the decisions that affect every aspect of their lives.


  • #55
    lucernarian
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,235 ✭✭✭lucernarian


    Black Menorca wrote: »
    The spoiled brat mentality. They want it handed to them on a plate.
    Spoiled brat mentality?! I hate how people seem to apply that as though it's only young people who are guilty of it.


  • #56
    symbolic
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,243 ✭✭✭symbolic


    Steppenwolfe wrote: »
    They will carry on letting others make the decisions that affect every aspect of their lives.

    Well who ever is making the decisions for my life is doing a fantastic job. Long may it continue :)


  • #57
    Black Menorca
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,572 ✭✭✭Black Menorca


    lucernarian wrote: »
    Spoiled brat mentality?! I hate how people seem to apply that as though it's only young people who are guilty of it.

    True, the mentality can be shown by people of all ages.


  • #58
    Saipanne
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,882 ✭✭✭Saipanne


    Black Menorca wrote: »
    True, the mentality can be shown by people of all ages.

    yOdUlik.gif


  • #59
    Black Menorca
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,572 ✭✭✭Black Menorca


    Saipanne wrote: »
    yOdUlik.gif

    A classic example. :D


  • #60
    Saipanne
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,882 ✭✭✭Saipanne


    If getting involved in grassroot politics means being surrounded by the smugeratti you can understand why most people avoid it.


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  • #61
    Black Menorca
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,572 ✭✭✭Black Menorca


    Saipanne wrote: »
    If getting involved in grassroot politics means being surrounded by the smugeratti you can understand why most people avoid it.

    Make up any excuse you like not to bother getting involved. Your choice. :)


  • #62
    jackofalltrades
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,253 ✭✭✭jackofalltrades


    Black Menorca wrote: »
    The marriage referendum has brought out tens of thousands of new voters from the woodwork.

    This has to be celebrated, well at least I celebrate it as a No voter.

    Its wonderful to see genuine engagement in political affairs.

    The challenge now is how can we keep their attention as we approach the General election next year?

    Harnessing this mass of new energy could revolutionise the way we do politics.

    Or, will they disappear again and turn their back on their civic duty?

    Yeah it's great to see loads of new people register to vote.
    It's really depressing at the same time.
    It takes a global issue, that is heavily reported on and is very topical, to get just 60% of the electorate to vote.

    Where were all these people for all the other recent referenda that we had?
    Why weren't they arsed to get out and vote in the Children's rights referendum?
    Is giving a child a decent life not worthy of the same consideration?


  • #63
    Sleepy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,268 ✭✭✭✭Sleepy


    This was a simple issue of Good vs Evil, an easy vote for most to cast and literally lead to celebrations on the streets. It was a positive experience for the vast majority of young voters.

    Voting in a n Irish General Election is a completely different, and depressing affair. It's a case of choosing the least worst option and despairing at how poor the candidates actually are. Add the fact that while you can elect the best and the brightest in your area, they're still going to be powerless unless they move in the right circles of the victorious party. When we get genuinely interesting candidates, who actually have relevant experience to the job of running a country, (e.g. Stephen Donnolly) they're side-lined in favour of school teachers/barristers who know where the right skeletons are buried. Add in the knowledge that, on a global level politicians make promises they can never keep in elections (from the frankly daft "Labour's way or Frankfurt's Way" to the disappointment American Democrats have had to swallow when Obama failed to turn the USA into a socialist utopia) and it's very easy to see why so few vote. It's a negative experience that makes you feel utterly impotent.


  • #64
    Zubeneschamali
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,686 ✭✭✭✭Zubeneschamali


    Sleepy wrote: »
    it's very easy to see why so few vote.

    I encourage everyone to feel disheartened and cynical and not to vote.

    I always vote, so the fewer of ye vote the bigger influence my vote has.

    (I am aware my vote has virtually no effect at all in practice- but it makes me feel better.)


  • #65
    FreudianSlippers
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,397 ✭✭✭✭FreudianSlippers


    Saipanne wrote: »
    If getting involved in grassroot politics means being surrounded by the smugeratti you can understand why most people avoid it.
    I have a few acquaintances that are in politics and where they used to be quite nice, I find them entirely insufferable to even be around now.


  • #66
    Black Menorca
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,572 ✭✭✭Black Menorca


    FreudianSlippers wrote: »
    I have a few acquaintances that are in politics and where they used to be quite nice, I find them entirely insufferable to even be around now.

    I love local politics. Have made great friends and there's always something to be done. Great craic.


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  • #67
    Sand
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,609 ✭✭✭✭Sand


    Black Menorca wrote: »
    I love local politics. Have made great friends and there's always something to be done. Great craic.

    Given the problem is the political set in Ireland, its highly unlikely anyone who views themselves as part of the political set is going to either recognise the problem or have any idea how or capacity to solve it. Its self reinforcing failure.


  • #68
    lucernarian
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,235 ✭✭✭lucernarian


    Black Menorca wrote: »
    I love local politics. Have made great friends and there's always something to be done. Great craic.
    Have you ever actually tried to deal with local councils or their petty civil servants? I don't even know any councillors who "love" local politics.


  • #69
    Labarbapostiza
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 963 ✭✭✭Labarbapostiza


    johnnyskeleton wrote: »
    I suppose the perception is that in a general election their vote doesnt count, that the established parties dont speak for them etc but that they can actually make a real difference and be heard in a referendum.

    It's not simply a perception, it's the reality. Conservatives have monopolised the dail. The process is such, that many people are offered a selection of candidates, none of which they could vote for, as none of them represent them.

    The support of same sex marriage is not a shift in the position of Irish political conservatism. It's a realisation that superficial social progressive costs nothing, whereas issues of economic inequality would.

    The old approach was to be both conservative on social issues as well as economic ones. The belief being if they loosened the leash over the working class on social issues, they'd eventually get movement on the economic. But now they've learned They can bait and switch. Let the people have gay marriage and then be economically retrogressive.

    That's why the neo-con Lucinda Creighton at the last moment came change her position on SSM.


  • #70
    Annasopra
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 41,104 ✭✭✭✭Annasopra


    echo beach wrote: »
    Again I would suggest that you aren't speaking their language. They don't want to be 'educated' in a process that they consider outmoded. They are all for democracy but NOT the way party politics sees it.
    Can you explain more about how this version of democracy differs?

    It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.

    Terry Pratchet



  • #71
    Annasopra
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 41,104 ✭✭✭✭Annasopra


    Saipanne wrote: »
    But none of that matters because...

    See above.

    If none of that matters we would never have had the marriage equality referendum.

    It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.

    Terry Pratchet



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  • #72
    Saipanne
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,882 ✭✭✭Saipanne


    Joeytheparrot wrote: »
    If none of that matters we would never have had the marriage equality referendum.

    I'm over here.


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