Just Disappointed At Humanity

We continue to make wrong decisions

Why do people vote the way they do? Why do they vote in such misguided, wrong ways? Why do they vote for the wrong candidates? Why are they always easily misguided when they choose whom to vote for? We keep seeing many voters getting easily duped and swayed by their leaders’ harmful, vile rhetoric and claims.

Whether it's in Malaysia where a lot of manipulation and propaganda comes in the form of religious and racial issues, whereby the people get easily riled up and swayed by inflammatory statements and actions by certain leaders and public figures...or in countries like the US, the UK and a lot of Europe as well, whereby the people are easily swayed by mainstream propaganda against Russia, China, Iran, Palestine, Hamas, etc.

Many people seem to just keep falling for their leader's lies and they essentially vote for policies that cause further division and corruption and especially in the case of Western countries, namely the US and the UK, they vote for more war and escalation against perceived threats and enemies.

Clearly, we aren’t truly intelligent

I’m just so exasperated towards people in general and how they think, how easily they’re manipulated into making wrong decisions and electing the wrong type of leaders, who then implement wrong, harmful policies for the rest of the world as well as their own citizens. It feels like people haven't learned from history, and we keep on repeating the same old mistakes of falling for lies and propaganda and manipulation.

And it just speaks to the fact that humans, as I've observed numerous times, are just so emotional rather than rational and intelligent. Our core impulses and driving factors are insecurity, anger, vengeance, jealousy, hatred, etc. I mean, you can clearly see this in how average citizens are easily manipulated by race and religion and nationalism, and just right-wing issues in general.

I feel that these particular characteristics of ours have brought upon so much damage and suffering and destruction, and also unfair, discriminatory practices against other people, especially those who don't deserve it, those who are of different skin colour, different race and religion than the majority in that particular society. It's a shame and it just speaks to the cruelty of our reality, that this is how we are as humans, and this is how we behave.

Someone like Trump’s in power because people put him there

I've been thinking increasingly about this because I've been reading about Trump's announcements and actions regarding his trade policies, his tariffs, his war mongering, the continuation of the proxy war in Ukraine, and the supplying of weapons to Ukraine and to Israel and all that.

And it just made me think: ‘What's the reason for this? What’s the ultimate reason why he's able to do this?’ It's because he's in a position of power. And who put him there? It's the people. It’s the American voters who put him there. So, in many ways, they are the ones to blame for this because they elected this type of leader who in truth is subservient to the capitalist class, the elite business class and the war machine.

Photo by Rosemary Ketchum: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-holding-trump-keep-america-great-again-2020-banner-1464210/

He doesn't really serve the interests of the common people. He doesn’t really care about world peace and equal treatment of all people and all countries. You can see this with his tariffs, and his talk of taking over the Panama Canal and Greenland and Canada. He has no real altruistic values. And yet, why is he in power? Who put him there? The people.

Strongly conservative religious beliefs and emotions dominate local politics

So that’s on the global stage. And then here in Malaysia, what made me think about this particular problem of human behavior is an ongoing by-election in my home state, in which one of the candidates is from a very conservative religious political party...which in the past general elections got like the second highest number of votes in the whole country.

So, basically, they're quite popular. And looking at this particular candidate’s resume.....it’s purely, 100% religious credentials. There’s nothing there about fighting for socioeconomic issues, social justice issues, etc. And the thing that upsets me is the fact that to many voters, it won't matter, because they don't vote based on concrete socioeconomic policies and important grassroot-level issues....instead they vote based on race and religion.

Photo by Ismael Paramo on Unsplash

This is where we're at in my country where for a lot of people, religion is the number one factor in how they vote. And it's all emotional...people have strong sentiments when it comes to religious issues and how they vote. And so, a significant number of voters are probably going to vote for this religious candidate.

My concern is, ‘What type of policies will this candidate advocate and push for if elected?’ Odds are that given the history of this religious party and the statements and policies it has advocated and pushed for throughout the years, they’re going to be quite conservative and quite restrictive and will lead to the erosion of basic rights. But to the people, especially those who voted for him and others who are like-minded, they don't care about that because for them they are catering to their own insecurities by electing this religious candidate.

It’s these types of developments in general that made me think about how people vote, what influences them to vote, why they behave the way they do, how easily they can be swayed....and it's quite disappointing. It makes you lose faith in humanity. So yeah, I just wanted to share these strong frustrations and exasperations that I have in light of what's happening in the world and back home.

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