Article content continued

“The Green Party.” Okay, Elizabeth May has been impressive, though with the three-way race few are taking notice.

The election is shaping up to be a bad mix of micro-politics and grand party narratives. Lost are the issues that are difficult to talk about, the issues upon which the parties deeply disagree, the issues that require nuance and sustained discussion, the issues that reflect large, looming questions about the nature of the country and how its 35 million citizens ought to be governed.

It’s an awfully lamentable state of affairs. But worst of all is that if we wanted to, we could immediately demand that things change. But we won’t. Because we love the show and we lack the attention spans and self-control needed for national discussions about important issues.

Whether the lack is an effect of how parties and politicians treat us or how we treat them — or both — is hard to know. When in doubt, it’s best to assume it’s a little of each. So everyone’s responsible; which means no one is.

So unless some series of events conspires to jolt us off course, the election will continue to be about easily digestible grand party narratives and 100-calories-per-package micro-issues. The media and pundits (myself among them) will cover the horse-race and lament the death of substantive policy discussion. The public will continue to complain and misjudge and pay some attention between now and when 65 per cent of them cast a ballot in October.

And if we’re lucky we won’t have to do this all over again next spring.

David Moscrop is a PhD candidate in political science at the University of British Columbia. Twitter.com/David_Moscrop