Last year was different.
I’ve come to terms with the realization nothing will live up to that handful of weeks in February, which grew more and more frantic by the day. Back then, I knew — anyone who paid attention did — that the Spring 2015 Student Government elections were unprecedented.
Firstly, a new party formed and gained strength, supporters and attention. Our joy (or entitled, bewildered anger) grew day by day. Seventeen senators abandoned the majority party in the middle of Senate session; student organizations of ethnic and sexual minorities, hitherto exploited with a sick game of “either support us or get no representation whatsoever, and forget about funding” finally broke out of the long-held trap.
In previous years, every sidewalk on campus was lined with uniformed Swamp Party goons with plastic smiles urging passers-by to vote, as if our votes were anything other than cheap rubber stamps on their own authority.
Last year’s rebellion promised to put an end to this situation, and for a short time, it did. I will never forget the night Access Party won that hard-fought campaign. It was like the end of a bad teen comedy from the ‘80s, with sulking Swamp supporters bearing a striking resemblance to the villains in such films. I look back on that night as the high-water mark of our time here.
Since that night, Access has underperformed in the Senate. This underperformance was due almost wholly to "gridlock," aka the democratic process. As we all know, democracy requires compromise: In a two-party system where both parties disagree completely on a large number of issues (I’m talking about the U.S. government), compromise is often difficult to achieve.
We’re familiar with this. I believe what happened here was not only the result of an admittedly frustrating democratic process, but a deliberate tactic by Swamp to stall the Senate at every opportunity.
Partisan gridlock set The System’s next stage for the Fall quite well. First, they discarded the husk of Swamp (the entire party declined to run). In its place rose Impact Party, a First Order among SG parties, staffed at the top with Swamp loyalists and just enough defectors from Access to make the party appear legitimate.
Impact situated itself as a third way between Swamp (which, coincidentally, slated no candidates in that election) and Access, promising to overcome division and bring “unity” to UF once again.
But UF wasn’t ready for democracy.
I guess we found ourselves sour after we were stirred from sweet dreams of unity, where the inconvenient burden of decision-making was carried out only by those who had pledged their souls to a paternalistic and self-serving political apparatus.
We certainly had no democratic tradition. When Impact ran on a platform of “Golly, democracy is hard!” we ate that shit up and lined up to vote for the same people we gleefully ousted in the Spring.
Perhaps the surprise viral sensation that is #NotMySystem will have enough of an effect on voter turnout to swing the election.
It’s frustrating that it took this long for people to take this open secret seriously — they’ve never done a great job of hiding it.
If a dramatic Facebook video is what it takes to raise awareness of the System, though, who am I to complain?
All that said, The System’s counter-revolution isn’t finished. If Impact’s candidates win the executive seats, then last year’s rebellion will have been rooted out and destroyed within a year. Luckily, that story hasn’t been written yet.
We, UF’s masses, still have a chance. If we’re ever going to seize power from the elite, the corrupt and the cynical, there has never been a better time to do so.
Alec Carver is a UF history junior. His column usually appears on Fridays.
