Post #1100188

"For those unfamiliar, a platform ... is a statement of values that a political party stands for, generally agreed upon by people who stand for election as representatives of the party." Sorry anonymous person who is super-excited for your new platform, that's not ENTIRELY correct. More accurately a platform is a STATEMENT of values that NOBODY who gets ELECTED into POSITIONS OF POWER is bound by. And the PARTY will not enforce those values either because it is so very happy to finally BE IN POWER that it doesn't matter anymore. The BASE might still care but it is ALSO POWERLESS to enforce anything. Indeed, after the election, the party MACHINERY will become very busy EXPLAINING AWAY the platform to its own base and EMPHASIZING THE NEED FOR COMPROMISE in a so-called FUNCTIONING DEMOCRACY. In other words, while it may be a lot of work to write a cool new platform, and while it may be a big personal achievement to have been part of it, there's also a 99.993% chance that policies of elected party members will NOT align with it except by accident and in areas where business and industry have no great interest. (So MAYBE you'll get the new youth club in some economically depressed town. But you certainly WON'T get those additional taxes on air traffic. Just as a fictitious example.)