Published in the Herald January 14
The secret ballot is the best invention in human history. It means we can all be honest in our votes. We don’t have to worry about what others think of our choice at election time, about potentially losing work or friends because our politics are deemed somehow faulty. In some countries, indeed, the secret ballot can save your life and liberty.
And let’s face it: we’re all complete cowards anyway. As the first general election in four years looms on the horizon, I am reminded again of the vast chasm between what we want to say to politicians when they come canvassing for votes – and what we actually say.
Maybe it’s the in-built Irish terror of any sort of confrontation – urgh, the awkwardness! – but personally, I now can’t imagine tearing into any candidate to their face over the next few weeks. Which is sort of a contradiction, because for the last four years I’ve been doing exactly that: imagining all the caustic, hostile and uncomfortable things I’d say to them when they knocked on the door.
You know yourself: any time something goes wrong with how this country is run, the default reaction is something like, “Wait until any of that shower come asking for my vote! I’ll give them a piece of my mind!”
You picture the scene as it will undoubtedly unfold: the hapless politico and band of supporters cowering in shame and terror as you impersonate Atticus Finch with a brilliant and devastating “j’accuse!” of their many failings. How satisfying it will be, you tell yourself. Years of pent-up anger and frustration unleashed in one almighty yawp of condemnation.
In reality, I open the door to, say, a member of the government party and instead of launching into a diatribe about the ongoing snafu in housing, health or broadband that’s slower than a lame turtle taking it nice and handy on his morning walk around the park, I’ll mutter a few banal words along the lines of “Uh, okay, yeah, I’ll give you a tick, no bother.”
It doesn’t even have to be a Fine Gael TD. The local Fianna Fáiler could come a-rapping on my door, and rather than metaphorically rip their head off over bankrupting the state in 2010 and generally being a cabal of sneaky weasels lining each other’s pockets for the last 80 years, I’ll nod and hum and promise to maybe think about giving them a vote.
Am I being dishonest? Ah, yeah. I’d have to admit that. But what can you do? As I said, it’s an Irish thing. Most of us are simply not programmed for any level of confrontation.
Presumably Germans, Americans, Poles and other races who tend to be more direct in their conversation don’t have a problem with critiquing politicians in person. And I’d imagine that the candidates, in turn, don’t mind too much being reproached by voters.
For us Irish, though, even the thought of it brings on a cold sweat. And canvassers would probably feel it was a bit “bad form” of you; that’s just not the way we do things here, like.
I can imagine their hurt little faces as I ask what the hell they’ve achieved for the area since the last general election, or test them on their policies, or demand they do something about whatever issue has been grinding my gears since 2016.
“Why is he being like this?” you can almost hear them thinking. “Doesn’t he know that Irish people never say what they mean?”
Ah stop, it’d be like torturing a puppy. I simply can’t do it.
Actually what I’d really love is to have the brass neck to ask a series of surreal, bizarre, abstract and irrelevant questions of each politician at my doorstep. Forget about the usual “what can your lot do for us” or “you promised to bring such-and-such to this town the last time and now where is it” type stuff.
Far more amusing – to me at least – would be questions such as: what is the meaning of life? Does God exist, and if so, is he/she/it interventionist or non-interventionist? Where do you stand on the time-honoured Marx-v-Hegel philosophical conundrum?
How will the county’s hurlers go this year? Should a man always wear a watch with a suit, even if he doesn’t normally wear one? What’s the best way to get blood out of a top if it needs to go on a low-temperature wash? (Asking that one for a friend.)
Have you seen John Wick 3? Follow-up question: if yes, what did you think of it? Follow-up to the follow-up: do you not feel that the franchise has jumped the shark a bit and they should have stopped at John Wick 2?
I won’t be doing any of that, though. I’ll stare at the ground, accept their election pamphlet that I won’t even look at before throwing it in the recycling, and assure them that, yes, I will most certainly give you an ould vote. Oh, I hate myself sometimes.
Darragh McManus, author and journalist 
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