In season 2 of Squid Game, there is a through line motif of voting. Some viewers found it tedious but I thought it was brilliant. Prescient even. After all, it must have been written and shot before the 2024 election in the US, and before the impeachment of the president in South Korea. Yet the way it depicts the futility of voting when you’re only given a bad choice vs a worse choice is visceral.
After the first game, the contestants are given the opportunity to vote whether to stay or go.
Should they stay or should they go now? If they go there will be trouble. If they stay it will be double…
Just as they are about to vote, and it seems the majority want to get the hell out of there, the potential winnings are almost literally rained down on them: above them hangs a clear plastic piggy bank, and into it is poured stacks and stacks of cash. Suddenly, leaving seems like a bad idea, even though it almost certainly means death. The contestants are swayed by the promise (the concept of a plan) of riches that only one of them will receive; they vote against their own self interest, their own self preservation even, on the extremely slim chance that they will get their grubby little mitts on those stacks of cash. And whaddayaknow- the majority, however slim, votes to stay. And the rest have to continue to live in the nightmare.
As we arrive at Inauguration Day, I’m reminded of how futile voting has become in the US. How we are continually asked to vote for the lesser of two evils, yet also continually told that if we don’t vote, the “other side” will destroy us all. This time especially, I feel extremely gaslighted after being told over and over again that if the Other Side wins, it’s the end of Democracy, those fascists will take all of your rights, don’t vote third party!! A third party vote is a vote for the Enemy! And then, when the Other Side did win, suddenly that talk was gone. Our Side was silent. Nothing about What To Do Now. No marching orders for how to combat what we were told would be the end of our country. Quite the contrary— Harris politely conceded, Biden went on like there had never even been an election, and voters like me looked around feeling like we had gone insane. Didn’t they use words like Authoritarianism, Fascism? Didn’t they tell us our democracy depended on this vote? And yet their response was hardly the response of people truly and genuinely concerned about the demise of their country. It was more like, Oh well. We live to try again another day. It was almost like they wanted to win just to win. It was almost like they weren’t nearly as afraid of the Orange Menace as they had led us to believe they were; almost like they didn’t really believe what they were saying. It was almost like we had voted to Go when maybe we should have tried for the cash. Or just opted out of the whole circus charade altogether. Now, I’m not saying that there is any circumstance under which I would have voted for the Orange Menace. But I am seriously questioning why I voted and whether I will ever vote again, and if I do, whether I will ever vote for one of the two major parties. I am so incredibly tired of the brinkmanship, the gaslighting, the lies, the power grabs. I’m a far-left liberal and I always will be. I will always believe that giving people more rights is preferable to giving them fewer. I’ll always believe that societies are stronger when they take care of all members equally. I’ll always believe that health, happiness, and bodily autonomy are human rights. But I feel like the party I’ve voted for my entire life is no longer a serious party. It’s not as far gone as the Elephants of course, but I don’t trust the Donkey anymore. I think it’s time for a new animal.