Vote For Yourself

A pipe dream, an imaginary manifesto, a beginning

A hairy man is pointing at the box in the corner of his room. It’s the box he looks at for hours each day; the one with the moving pictures of people, usually those pretending to do or feel things for money. He’s pointing at it because he wants the shuffling woman, the one he lives with, to look at and listen to the box. The woman is duly shuffling over to look and listen.

There are two people visible in the box: one is a confident woman who is dressed very smartly and the other is a tall woman with a piercing gaze. Someone is speaking but neither woman’s lips are moving. It becomes apparent that this voiceover has been done by the confident woman.

The confident woman’s voice is explaining that at first everybody thought the whole thing was a joke or some kind of art project, and now she is asking the other woman why on earth she is doing the thing that she is doing. Why on earth, she’s asking, would you run in an election and ask people not to vote for you?

Hairy man is, meanwhile, explaining to shuffling woman that the woman doesn’t want anyone to vote for her, as if shuffling woman doesn’t already know that.

Piercing gaze isn’t phased by the question, nor does she seem perturbed by the apparent absurdity. She’s saying that she doesn’t have any policies, or beliefs, or opinions about anything. There’s nothing to vote for, she says. It’s like she’s not even really a person at all, let alone a politician.

The confident woman seems to rise a few inches at this, and repeats her question again: why is she running in the election then, if she doesn’t want people to vote for her? And piercing gaze is saying that it’s because she wants people to vote for themselves.

Back to the confident woman, who asserts that it must be a prank then, because people can’t vote for themselves — the deadline for nominations passed weeks ago. She’s joking isn’t she?

Her counterpart is shaking her head, saying that it’s completely possible, and then she’s describing what she means.

All that’s required, she says, is for people to tell her what to do. That’s what democracy is supposed to be, after all, she’s saying. People power. She’s just trying to show a way it could be done properly. So what will happen is that the people in this place, the one where she’s standing for election, will continuously give her instructions on what they think needs to happen and she’ll do what she’s told.

Confident woman is scoffing at the ridiculousness of it, as if the truth is crazier than a joke or a pretentious experiment. She’s telling her that it’s impossible, that nobody has the time to do that and it would be impossible (she uses the word again) to gather all the information and opinions from everyone and make them into something coherent.

Piercing gaze is being patient but is also tiring of this. She’s not, she says, suggesting that we all live in a huge eternal meeting. All that’s needed, she says, is that the people in your street or area come to some kind of agreement on what she should do, and then send one person to a neighbourhood meeting every couple of weeks. The neighbourhood then does the same thing, finding an agreement, and they send someone to a bigger meeting. When the area as a whole has decided what to do, they tell her. And then she does it.

Confident woman has lost her confidence a bit at this point, because she’s having to think about something that’s very new to her. As she often does in this type of situation, she more or less just invites the person she’s talking with to explain a bit more. Unfortunately for her, piercing gaze isn’t going to explain it any more because, she’s saying, she’s just explained it, and she thinks the people at home (like the hairy man and shuffling woman, although she isn’t saying exactly that because she doesn’t know they exist) will have understood perfectly well.

Confident woman is going for her back-up tactic when she’s confused, which is to rephrase what the person just said to her, in the hope that hearing it in her own words will allow it to click. So, she’s saying, anyone who votes for you (the piercing gaze woman interjects to say for themselves but it’s glossed over) will all meet up and decide what happens to everybody. Something does click, and she understands it better, so she says that it doesn’t seem fair on all the other people, she’s saying, the people who voted for other candidates.

Piercing gaze is agreeing that what she has said doesn’t sound at all fair and that’s why she’s not proposing that. What she is proposing is that everybody has a say, no matter who they voted for.

But, the interviewer is telling her after a brief stammer, people need shepherds to come up with ideas and visions of how the world could be. Piercing gaze is replying that people aren’t sheep and they’ve had enough of being treated like them.

From nowhere, the confident woman’s confidence is suddenly brimming back. She (confident woman) sees what she (piercing gaze) is doing, she says. She’s going to promise the world and as soon as people vote for her (piercing gaze doesn’t correct her this time) she’s going to take control of everything and nobody will be able to do a thing about it. The confident woman thinks she’s got her, and is telling piercing gaze, again, that she can see exactly what she’s doing. It’s the oldest populist trick in the book, she’s saying proudly. Hairy man is looking at shuffling woman with a knowing nod, like he’s caught her out himself, even though he doesn’t wholly understand what’s going on.

Piercing gaze has momentarily lost her piercing gaze, and looks at the confident woman like she’s just farted in an art gallery.

The whole point of this, piercing gaze is saying, is that she (piercing gaze) doesn’t matter. The people literally decide everything, so she can be replaced at the drop of a hat, whenever it’s agreed, and there’s no way for her to do anything about it. The same goes, she’s saying, for anyone who speaks for other people — in a street, a neighbourhood, anywhere. The person who speaks isn’t a leader or a figurehead, she’s saying. They’re messengers, they’re expendable, in the best way possible, she says. What matters in all this, she says, is that people finally have a real say in the things that are done in their name.

Hairy man is starting to like the woman with the piercing gaze.

What does she want to achieve with all this, the confident woman is asking. Well, her accomplice is saying, if it works well then it will grow naturally. Other places can vote for themselves too and maybe those places can work together on things with this place. And perhaps if people, at any scale, can’t agree on something then they can agree to disagree, so that one neighbourhood might have the confidence to do things one way while other neighbourhoods do it differently. Unity in diversity, she says, strength in difference.

Something has finally hardened in the confident woman, and she has decided she doesn’t like the idea. She says almost sulkily that she doesn’t think the mob should be in control like this.

Well then, replies piercing gaze, you should vote for someone else.

So you are telling people not to vote for you, confident woman is saying.

No, piercing gaze is saying, her gaze somewhere between wisdom and a threat, I’m telling you to vote for someone else.

— — — — —

The two woman have disappeared from the screen because it is changing to show something different.

The hairy man is saying that he’s voting for himself, and he’s asking the shuffling woman who she is going to vote for.

Not you anyway, she’s saying, laughing.

But maybe me, she says. Maybe me.