Machiavellian vs Zen voting

You would think it would be a simple thing deciding who to vote for: just find the party whose principles resonate most with you, or whose past performance has impressed you the most, and vote for them.  Easy, isn't it?

Well, no.  Both Likud and Machaneh Tzioni are arguing that you should vote for them, rather than their smaller natural allies, to ensure that they are the largest party in the knesset, and will therefore be given the opportunity to form the coalition.

Fortunately that canard is easy to debunk, as I have done before, but despite the incontrovertible evidence provided by real life experience as recent as Kadima's 28-27 "victory" over Likud in 2009, the media persists in maintaining this false narrative, so many people swallow it because of the Availability Cascade cognitive bias (i.e. the more you repeat a given statement, the more people tend to believe it is true).

But now I have another dilemma.  I fundamentally disagree with Eli Yishai's economic and social platform, and I find Baruch Marzel a little too extreme even for my tastes.  But I would prefer for these two fellas to be in the Knesset rather than a couple of extra left-wingers.  And here's the rub: according to the last polls released before the 7-day blackout on surveys before election day, Yachad is hovering on the edge of the electoral threshold.  If they make it over the required 3.25%, they will have at least 4 seats.  If they don't, those 4 seats will be divvied up proportionately among those who did make it.  Which means, assuming a roughly 50-50 split, that 2 of their seats will go to people I strongly disapprove of.

Under normal considerations, my single vote cannot be more than the tipping point for one Knesset seat to change hands (or bottoms).  In this case, however, my vote could constitute the tipping point for 4 whole seats!  So maybe I should refrain from voting for my first-choice party, and rather vote for a party that would otherwise be my fourth or fifth choice, just to help them get into the Knesset and strengthen the overall "right wing" bloc?  The argument is not without merit, even if it's not compelling.

But then... there's the law of unintended consequences.  For example, not so long ago everyone was calling for Bashar al-Assad to be deposed in Syria.  Now all of a sardine, everyone's gone quiet on that score.  What happened?   Islamic State, of course.  Who ever thought there could arise and even more vicious, cruel and despotic regime than Assad's?  Yet if he had fallen when the hounds were out for his blood, all the indications are that IS would have taken full control of Syria, as they have in Iraq where the West deposed another cruel and bloody dictator, and we would have had the richest, best equipped, most full-tilt nut-job Islamist terrorist organization in the world massing on our border.  Good thing we didn't get what we wanted, huh?

Similarly I could make the case that, Netanyahu's capacity for Churchillian oratory notwithstanding, perhaps the best thing for Israel is for him to lose power now, and Herzog to become prime minister?   Bear with me on this.  It's not too difficult to conjure up a scenario where Netanyahu would do a Sharon, and make a suicidal deal with the Palestinians.  So half the Likud would revolt -  big deal!  He would be able to pass the deal with the support of the Left and the Arab parties.  Herzog, on the other hand, has no such leeway, because as PM he would be battling everyone to the right of him, plus he would have a few security hawks in his own coalition who would need some serious persuasion.

Also, Netanyahu is right now the unchallenged leader of the Right.  He's unchallenged, because nobody can challenge him.  What, try depose a charismatic and powerful sitting prime minister from your own camp, who is received with wave after wave of standing ovations in Congress?  Obama didn't ever get that kind of reception, even when the Dems controlled Congress.  Moshe Feiglin challenged Netanyahu, and look how that worked out for him.

But if he were to lose, it would open up the playing field to other leadership contenders.  Herzog would maybe be able to hold together a coalition for two years, at the outside, and then we'll be back to new elections.  This would allow a new rising star to take over the leadership of the Right, perhaps someone more ideologically driven, with a fresh perspective and new momentum.  Like Feiglin, or Naftali Bennett, or who knows who else?  Maybe even Tzipi Hotovely?  It might be worth a couple years of watching Herzog trying to keep his government together, once the hate-Bibi glue has expired, and now all the conflicting demands of his coalition partners start playing off against each other.  Heck, the entertainment value of that might even be the payoff by itself!

I'm not trying to predict the future here or advocate a contrarian voting position; that's not the point.  All I'm saying is, there are so many different ways that things can play out, and trying to go Machiavellian on it is not guaranteed, or even highly probable, to lead to a better outcome; in fact, it could backfire seriously.

So I've made my decision: I will be a Zen voter, and simply vote for the party I feel best represents my views, and let the chips fall where they may.  And I respectfully submit that you should do the same.

It's election time - and I don't care!

For a person like me who is usually almost OCD about following the polls and election news, this is a completely new and liberating experience:  I have almost no interest in the daily reports about our upcoming elections.  I arrived at this happy place when I realized that it simply doesn't matter.  All the hype in the media about the day to day incremental polling trends, and what this politician says about that one, is irrelevant.

It's frankly a little embarrassing to see so many intelligent people making so much noise about whether the "Zionist Camp" or Likud will get more seats, as if that makes any difference.  Like, don't they remember what happened in 2009?  Kadima under Livni got one seat more than Likud under Netanyahu.  Does that mean they won?  No; Kadima got the most seats by cannibalizing votes from their natural coalition partners, Labor and Meretz.  So when it came time to form a coalition, Livni was stranded, and Netanyahu became Prime Minister again.  So too today: even if Yitzhak Herzog gets a couple seats more than Netanyahu, it won't make a shred of difference: the only thing that counts is how many total Knesset seats he will be able to command for a coalition.  And in those stakes, Netanyahu is king.  Between his natural coalition partners (Bayit Yehudi, Yisrael Beiteinu, Koolanu, Ha'Am Itanu) and the Haredi parties, their total poll numbers have consistently been hanging around the 70 mark, give or take a couple.  (Link to a great poll-of-polls analysis over time here, thanks to DG and ED.)  So barring some really major "black swan" event, I think we can pretty safely say that the large print of the day-after reports will probably read "Netanyahu re-elected Prime Minister".

The small print may be of slightly more interest, but not much.  The biggest swing factor will be whether Ha'Am Itanu makes it over the bar, but otherwise the trends are pretty much in a holding pattern.  A handful of seats may be swinging between various parties, but the overall picture is consistent: the government will once again be formed of a hodgepodge of medium and small parties.  They will thrash out a coalition agreement that nobody will be particularly happy with, and within a year or two, the government will once again fall due to internal bickering, and we'll be back at the polls.

Even if I'm wrong, and Herzog does manage to cobble together a majority of the Knesset to support a coalition under him, I don't really care.  His coalition would somehow have to include even more fractious partners, like Lapid with the Haredim, or Liberman with Meretz.  They wouldn't be able to do anything significant or dangerous, and the government wouldn't last long enough to give Livni even a day at the helm.

Netanyahu's proposed legislation to change the electoral system may or may not pass, but once again, it won't matter.  I know I'm pitting my intelligence against a guy who reportedly has a 180 IQ, but I simply cannot fathom how he thinks it will help to crown the leader of the largest party as Prime Minister automatically, even if he can't form a majority coalition.  Does it mean that the government will be able to pass laws even without a majority?  That's unthinkable; it means the Knesset might as well pack up its bags and go home, and you're effectively stuck with a dictatorship for 4 years.  But if you do need a majority to pass laws, then how will it help if the nominal Prime Minister cannot command that majority?  If anyone can educate me as to what subtle point I am missing, I'll be most grateful, but right now this idea looks pretty asinine.

So the cycle will repeat itself, returning to elections every couple of years that produce the identical outcome as the time before, with minor power shifts and flavor-of-the-month "centrist" parties rising and falling, until maybe someone significant decides to pursue the idea of switching to district representation, an event for which I have faint hope, for reasons I have explained before.

Perhaps my most compelling reason for getting excited about elections in the past was because each time was an opportunity for Moshe Feiglin to get elected.  He did, and performed superbly - and then he got ousted by the Likud and is not running in these elections.  So I really do have no horse in this race.  I haven't decided who I'll vote for, and when I do, I probably won't feel any need to advertise or proselytize, because it won't make any difference overall.  I do hope Feiglin will return to the scene with credible force next time around, because I think he's the one person who really has potential to shake up the system.

But until then, I'm watching the elections as a movie-goer watches an entertaining historical film.  Without any emotional involvement, without any need to trash-talk anyone, relaxed, and happy!