Friday, February 7, 2025

The rise of negative partisanship and the bastardization of politics in Botswana!

Botswana’s noble tradition of decent politicking has been hijacked by extremist trolls who confuse vulgarity with fame and unafraid to broadcast whatever passes through their minds if only to prove that they are fearless insurgents. In effect, our politics has become like bitter sport rivalry between ill-bred township adolescents with too much testosterone to burn. 

Our template for doing politics is to spout nonsense, hate each other and become a genius in the realm of barbarity. Political parties have become poison factories of political extremism hence people of different political parties today feel out rightly frosty toward each other in ways that erode civil behaviors and bear vulgar politicians. 

Political differences have escalated to sheer hatred with citizens too keen to show their disdain of one another. While this trend has been evolving over the years, it is reaching frighteningly low point and dividing the nation right in the middle. 

Our hatred of those with differ with overshadows the value for human life in ways that legitimize violent politics and definitely represent the bastardization of party politics in Botswana.  

Political competition has come to be defined by a new and ill-tempered style of politics with far more partisan rancor and occasional threat of physical harm. The pattern of public opinion toward the state president and leaders of the opposition reflect a really worrying trend in the steady growth of partisan animus and abusive party politics.

Our politics has become increasingly polarized and toxic with citizens turning against each other in an escalating pattern of political profiling of citizens along the lines of ethnic identity.

Whereas increased partisan animosity and heightened negativity in the way we conduct our party politics is not really a new trend, it is nevertheless reaching levels that are bad for both our democratic culture and nation building. 

Although some people believe that partisan animosity and political hostility has potential for heightened political consciousness and active political participation that is necessary for a healthy democracy, this essay argues that politics that animate people to draw hard lines over every single bit of matter is a preclude to democratic decay, anarchy and ultimately, insurgency.

Hate-filled politics makes people view each other with enmity and hostility which in turn ensures that party politics moves away from being a competition of ideas to partisan prejudice and negative campaigning

In effect, politics in Botswana has become more polarized with citizens moving farther away from one another and thinking the worst about each other. We have reached a point where voters from the ruling and opposition parties characterize one another as a threat to the nation and possibly deserving electrocution to save the nation.

Yet, this new style of partisan behavior has very little to do with political difference in the sense of policy preferences but has everything to do with what political scientist call negative partisanship

Negative partisanship is understood as a tendency by people to support a political party primarily on account of their hatred for the other groupings. Negative partisanship holds that opposing voters see each other not only as foolish but dangerous because their belonging to different political parties stokes very strong and impassioned negative feelings toward each other.

Such negative feelings generally have nothing to do with policy preferences but are merely guided by a false construction of distrust and fear that are legitimized by shallow brains.

Negative partisanship tends to deepen partisan antipathy beyond politics, creating a society where households, workplaces and neighborhoods have a partisan composition and social relations have turned into high stakes partisan sorting that could potentially harm one’s chances in life. 

Negative partisanship inspires people to despise, hate and vilify each other rather than do objective, issue-based politics. With anger at an all-time high among Batswana, especially the youth and some ethnic groups that have a habit of playing the victim, voters on either side of the political divide nurse fears that the other side is unmistakably dangerous as to cause irreparable national harm hence the need to ensure that such party members are kept far away from the corridors of political power

This negativity explains the manner of illogical and erratic public opinion wherein even those who are known to be incorrigibly corrupt, dishonest and immoral can point to the immorality of their former partners in crime only because they have since changed political homes. 

Negative partisanship means that opposing voters find each other impossible to reason with because party politics is no longer about issues but just purposeless partisan rancor, resentment and threat to life with the hope that the hostility will get people to the polls and lead one to victory. 

A consequence of this negative partisan behavior is that people loathe each other and this is really harmful because political opponents are treated as enemies who should be hated and possibly excluded from and deprived of opportunities that accrue from the nations’ resources

In accordance with the standard recipe of negative partisanship, voters just have to hate their opponents more than they like their own or more than they support their parties on a number of policy issues.

Essentially, negative partisanship erodes the value of politics as competition of ideas since hatred and anger shapes our choices and influences our decision making and ultimate actions. Thus, the animosity that accompanies negative partisanship is obviously antithetical to political development and nation building,

Essentially, negative partisanship is just about attacking opponents instead of talking about one’s own strengths. It is about adopting a hostile, confrontational and rhetorical style of politics that seeks to portray opponents as sworn enemies and inglorious bastards. 

It is about creating a pool of provocateurs, loud-mouthed damned voters who are motivated to vote against their enemies more than they would reasonably vote their own.

While negative partisanship reflects a growing divide between ruling party followers and their counterparts in the opposition bloc, more than anything else, it reflects a growing divide over ethnicity and this is pretty dangerous as tribes people citizens come to view each other as eternal enemies who possibly should be eliminated before they harm other tribes and the nation at large.

In our new politics, rather than seeking to inspire people around real issues of national concern, sly people we call politicians need only to incite hatred against imaginary enemies and fear of enemies to win the bloody sport and maintain power.

And we know this is undesirable, yet, because politicians just aim to win by hook or by crook, negative partisanship has found a home and it is at home and we should expect our politics to become even uglier.

As a result our embrace of negative partisanship, we will hate each other and then we will start slaughtering each other until bodies are too numerous to bury for that is what certified scumbags do best. 

May be we have got to reset (whatever it means) as has become fashionable in order that we find ourselves before we inevitably become a proud nation of buoyant scoundrels.            

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