Korea just impeached its president for the second time in its history. I’m still somewhat in disbelief that this second impeachment ever happened in the first place because it felt so sure after the first impeachment that we won’t ever go through something like this again.
Park Geun-Hye, the first president to be impeached, was from the conservative party and her primary scandal was that she was a puppet of an unelected cult leader. She didn’t make any decisions of her own and she just relayed what the cult leader wanted her to do. But it was pretty evident during the presidential debates that something about her was incoherent and she didn’t quite have the wordsmithing abilities of her opponent at the time, we just attributed that to general ineptitude I guess? Anyhow, needless to say the next election was dominated by the liberal party.
But after just one term the administration became conservative again primarily due to economics. Korea is a very capital-centric country where practically 90% of all the country’s infrastructure is centered around one city, Seoul. Because of this the real estate in Seoul is crazy high and the rest of the country practically has no demand when it comes to real estate compared to Seoul.
The liberal administration failed to curb the continuously rising real estate prices and on top of that the department of land development had its employees doing insider trading on land that was to be developed. This sent everyone to a disappointed frenzy and as an alternative to the liberal government people flocked to the conservative party again. Which sounds crazy when you just look at the fact that the conservative party elected a puppet for a president, but when you have a two party system and one party’s really not doing well at the time… What other option do you really have?
The thing about Korea is though, we are primarily a two party political country but our minority parties are actually more powerful than the U.S.’s. But in Korean history there is one event that made voting third party a travesty: in the late 80’s, the election was between a post-dictator military party vs. democratic party. The democratic party couldn’t consolidate to one candidate so they had two candidates against the military party’s one. The military party won and the democratic party went down in shambles, and after this event not consolidating and not voting a major party became a very discouraged activity.
Anyway. A few years ago we elected another conservative president who was the head of the DA office in Korea. The previous liberal president also had a lot of personal issues with the cabinet members as they engaged in many politically inappropriate activities so people were very much craving justice. A conservative president with a background in judicial law seemed like a good choice… Until day 1, he decided that he would use his private residence as the president’s office instead of the traditional Blue House (which is like Korea’s White House).
After a crazy amount of taxpayer money going into funding this ridiculous effort, came more strange antics from this president. He keeps on talking about drinking for some reason, talks shit about other presidents with a hot mic, and some general shenanigans that seem ridiculous. Turns out he’s also affiliated with this cult leader and blah blah blah, multiple scandals later something hits the nail in the coffin: martial law.
The reason why I’m giving you a history of modern Korean politics is, politics in general these days seem to wear people out. But there is something ridiculous about our reaction to politics. We seem to elect politicians to improve immediately pressing issues. This should indicate the logic of, “if we solve this immediate pressing issue our society will be better!”. But what happens often time is, there is always a next pressing issue. While sometimes the administration is effective in handling it, many times they won’t react to it to the public’s liking.
I’m not describing some rocket science shit here, I’m describing the general human condition of constantly changing and having new problems with new solutions. So ideally it would be wise to elect leaders with a longer term vision of how they can lead a country over multiple spans of immediate problems. But sensationalism, algorithms, and polarization of society keeps on making us elect the next extreme to the next extreme to the next extreme.
I ask you, the reader, individually: “is what you’re doing actually beneficial for you? What you think is good for you, is it actually good for you?”. This question, I think, is also very beneficial to ask for society as well. Where we are headed towards and where we want to be headed towards, we want to go there because we think it’s good for us. But will it actually be good for us?
Is having a stronger economy actually good for us? When spending increases and the consumerism goes even more active, creating more waste and residual effects on the planet, is it actually good for us? Is personal freedom on vaccination and personal financial responsibility when it comes to medical expenses actually more valuable than societal benefits that come from herd immunity and universal healthcare?
I’m not claiming to know all the answers, I have my opinions but I can’t be sure that my proposed methods will make everyone’s life better. In the practical sense it is more important to be happy regardless of who the president is, because the president does not control my happiness: I do. But because I am perfectly happy, I think a lot about how can this happiness, even if it is dependent happiness, be more accessible to the people who really need it?
There are many people who work in the shadows to make the world a happier place regardless of who the president is. These people typically don’t chase clout so we never really hear about them. I think having an active discourse around politics with an open mind is important. Equally as important is doing what we can to make the world a happier place regardless of what is happening in politics.
Today, what am I doing for the world, this country, and my home country?