Nothing says “bad sports” like conservative politicians losing elections. They’re not only bad winners, but they’re also terribly, terribly bad losers. Here’s the way conservatives work:
- If they win by 1 seat, or 1 tenth of a vote, they have a “clear and firm mandate from the public” to implement whatever scheme they talked about not to mention a whole raft of schemes they never mentioned during the election process.
- If they lose by 10, 20, 30 seats or by a significant percentage of the vote, they insist that the non-conservative party didn’t in any way achieve a mandate. What’s that? 50% more people voted for the other side? Well fuck it, the other side obviously lied and hid their real intent, and it’s the role of the conservatives to delay and prevent any policy implementation through any legal means and as many shady means as they can get away with.
- If the vote is very close, but they lost, well, bring on the full-blown tantrums. Disruptive politics, childish attacks and prevention of government until they’ve completely hobbled the party that got into power.
Don’t believe me? Look at the way the Republicans have spent the last 2 years screwing America six ways from Sunday. Looking closer to home, look at the way Tony Abbott and crew have reacted to not winning the 2010 Australian Federal election. Throwing parliamentary conventions out the window – declaring an intent to block sitting government members from being able to travel by not pairing during absences. Pulling out the old “no mandate” line. It’s a parliamentary cluster fuck of gargantuan proportions.
It’s a tantrum like you’ve never seen before.
Oh wait, I think I have seen that sort of tantrum before…
I suspect that’s about the way Tony Abbott reacted when he found out the independents had agreed to side with Labor.
Now, I’m not saying that non-conservative parties are perfect when they lose elections, but in my time I’ve never observed labor, or the democrats, etc., behaving in any way remotely as bad as the conservative parties do when they lose elections.
It’s time to call the conservatives out, and mock and ridicule them for pulling such pathetic stunts. If they want to engage in the political process, then they should engage it. If they want to throw tantrums and have screaming hissy fits, they need to go find a sandpit full of four year olds, where what they do won’t look out of place.
(Do all conservatives react this way? No, some of course react with honour and integrity. This certainly doesn’t seem to be the majority though…)
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