Elective Affinities
Rather than their manifestos, political parties are clearly emergent assemblages of the human psyche, and relatively easily summarised and relatable ones at that1,2. Maybe for better governments we should ask not 'who do you want to vote for', but rather, 'what kind of person do you want to be'3,4,5.
Notes:
1 In the same way as much of what we do is now accepted as post-hoc rationalisation of emotions, I doubt many people care what the policies of parties are, but respond more to the general emotional feel of a party. Even when people do look at manifestos, why do they decide one way or another? For years I voted for the one party who said they'd raise taxes, because it looked like they cared, and cared more for the truth than votes – which is, of course, probably why they did it. I can't think of a single thing they said they'd spend the money on.
2 In some senses the mirror image of the good body ruled as a city-state in Plato's Republic.
3 I don't think this is a category error - we're all part of the political system, in the same way as your arm is part of you. What's perhaps surprising is the ease at which political parties map to human characteristics; there's no reason they shouldn't be more complex entities – it just goes to show how dominant those characteristics are in our lives, and how much complexity takes second place to appeal in democracies.
4 If we asked each party to come up with one human characteristic it represented, how much easier would it be to recognise when it was a lie.
5 If people had to pick one human characteristic they'd like in control, I think we'd generally get a better government. Or perhaps each party gets one characteristic and then a committee of the others gets to pick one alternative. Would you rather: support / naivety (Labour); self-protection / corruption (Conservatives); care / puritanicalism (Greens); sovereignty / hate (Reform); self-determination / hunger for power (Nationalist parties)?