The abolition of the vote as a triumph of banality

By Luciano Boci

To argue for her concept of the "banality of evil", philosopher Hannah Arendt conducted an exhaustive analysis of the trial of Adolf Eichmann (one of the organizers and perpetrators of the Holocaust).

In conclusion, she emphasized that evil can be committed not necessarily by monsters, but by ordinary people who simply follow some imposed "rules", without ethically reflecting on them.

Their product is monstrous in relation to the rules that were imposed on it. Thus, the real monster lies in the creator of the rules and the consequences of their implementation.

I came up with this definition to shed some light on what happened with the vote in these elections.

Far from political rhetoric, we can say that the killing of the vote today as a "monstrous" act was carried out very simply in broad daylight and based on several "rules" that have already become the norm, drafted and exposed by Rama's government as necessary and mandatory to be implemented.

From this perspective, political patrons, the frustrated and frightened administration, organized crime gangs, the purchased or self-sacrificing media, the captured police, although they are the executors of the murder and the annihilation of the vote, feel completely at ease in front of their mirror and I believe they have no reflection despite the feeling of triumph.

He even finds what the opposition is demanding today excessive, not to say strange.

According to them, they have followed the "rules" of power imposed by the party and the head of the organization, which are beyond the law and the constitution, but which are considered all-powerful in a system based on political banality.

Their vote buying, industrial manipulation, and violent distortion of its benefits, is a process that has been announced for years and has now reached its peak.

RAMA as a political banality

Rama entered politics and will emerge from it as the creator of political banality, as the politician who annihilated the vote, and as the prime minister who established an exemplary narco-regime.

His manipulation machine is gigantic and includes every governing mechanism, including the media, the justice institutions and the CEC, but also the entirety of the political parties.

His electoral campaigns have long since turned into a competition for jokes, slogans that are forgotten the day after the elections, and populist performances that do not serve the citizen, but only the image.

He says nothing because behind these banal quintessences, everything else is criminal: theft, mass buying, criminal involvement, dirty money, vote distortion and destruction.

At the end of the day, choices don't exist for him. We only have a repetitive ritual, where only the scenery changes, but not the script.

BERISHA as a challenger

In a phone call in 2013, when I was the head of the DP branch, with Berisha, then Prime Minister, I was impressed that his fundamental insistence was on the fairness of the vote and the clarity of the electoral process, and not on winning the elections at any cost or by any means.

I ended the conversation not without surprise, but this was the Doctor. He wanted to win with justice, accountability, a program, and political values.

It is like that today.

Within his concept, the vote is and remains the foundation of a system that we wanted and dreamed of since 1990.

The banalists who posed as analysts and who today have triumphed as the gilded spear of Rama's banality, do not stop attacking him, the politician who, even in the judgment of his fiercest opponents, remains "the only true politician."

But the banal scheme demands this, and all the batteries and arrows of banality are directed today at the man who represents and transmits the opposite of banality.

He had and still has political seriousness, a real program, human positivity, and a tangible vision.

Shifting the media debate from the problem of banality to the challenger is a continuation of the triumph of banality with banal media and banal methods.

EPILOGUE

All that has happened with the annihilation of the vote is not just a political crisis. It is also a deep cultural and civic crisis, because the silence that accepts evil is worse than the evil itself.

And the biggest challenge today is not to defeat a party or a candidate.

The challenge is to defeat the kingdom of banality and return the vote, seriousness, and content to the center of public debate.

Democracy doesn't die with a bang; it dies slowly, when we accept that everything is "okay" even when it isn't.

Today, more than ever, we need to restore the meaning of the vote.

Not simply as a formal right, but as a moral and political act that requires responsibility from everyone: citizens, politicians, and institutions.

Because a wasted vote is a ruined democracy. And a ruined democracy is the soil where the banality of evil grows.

It is a puddle where the "pig" Rama feels like the Prime Minister of banality.