I Was For It Before I Was Against It
“VOTE GYPSY MOTH—HE’LL SPEAK FOR THE TREES!” blared the words atop the poster. It depicted a pony, his cutie mark the moth that was his namesake, standing atop a pyramid of stacked and corded timber. His hoof pointed to the sky, where a stylized sunburst flanked by a bushel of wheat on one side and a pitcher of cream on the other denoted his party affiliation. Underneath the pyramid, in much smaller text, were the words “Paid for by the Party of Celestia’s Rural Laborers.”
Gypsy stared at it thoughtfully. It was his favorite poster from last year’s campaign; he was so fond of it that he’d had a copy framed and placed in his office after he won his election. The way the pyramid drew one’s eyes to him, and the subtle lightening the artist had included as the poster faded from dark forest green at the edges to nearly white at the middle, made him look a figure of unquestionable warrant. In the poster, he seemed powerful, an authoritative stallion whose wise pronouncements were to be heeded, and who could be trusted to represent the needs of his people.
The reality of being in a 42-way tie for Most Junior Backbencher in a 351-member parliament was somewhat different. And today, the difference was being thrown into especially sharp contrast.
Without turning away from the poster, he addressed the pony standing behind him. “Say that one more time?”
“A simple ‘yes, sir’ will suffice.”
“Humor me.”
Gypsy could almost hear the older stallion’s eyes rolling. “You’re going to vote nay when Parliamentary Bill 1002AC-143 comes to the floor.”
“I thought you said that.” Gypsy turned, arching an eyebrow as he did. “But I was sure that couldn’t be right. Because after all, why in Equestria would anypony vote to remain at war with the Crystal Empire? What possible reason could there be to support continuing hostilities with a friendly nation? One currently ruled by Princess Celestia’s own niece, no less?”
He was quietly pleased by how blandly he managed to say those words. Keeping one’s tone inoffensive when one’s words said otherwise was a highly valued skill in the House of Commons, and although he was by no means a master, he felt he had at least proven a fast learner.
If the venerable West Hold appreciated that blandness, though, he didn’t show it. “Does it matter? This isn’t a free vote, kid—at least, not for you. Tell plebs back home whatever you want, just make sure you vote against the bill.”
Gypsy barely resisted the urge to shift his weight. Instead, he nodded slightly, then added in as blasé a voice as before, “If it’s not too much trouble, I’d still like to know why anypony would agree to do that.”
“And if it is too much trouble?”
“Then I’d understand that to mean that my voting nay isn’t as important as you might want me to believe.”
For a moment, he thought that he might have provoked Hold’s ire—though the stallion was well known in parliament for his “cold geniality,” one didn’t become a whip without being able to break a few metaphorical legs—but he instead took a seat on one of the office’s overstuffed couches. “Do you know how many seats the Monarchist Party presently holds in Commons?”
Gypsy took a seat across from him. “105, isn’t it?”
“And the Alicorn Party?”
“58.”
“And together, that’s…?”
“You’re talking to me like a foal,” Gypsy observed, careful to keep any annoyance out of his voice.
“Are you going to vote nay on 143?” When no answer was forthcoming, Hold snorted. “How many?”
“...163.”
“And how many votes are needed to pass a bill through the Commons?”
“176. Is this—”
“So,” Hold didn’t raise his voice, but managed to talk over him nevertheless, “How many short of a majority are the two largest pro-Celestia parties combined?”
“13.”
Hold smiled collegially. “Very good. Now, I’m sure you know that our CRL party has 15 members in Commons at present. That makes us the next largest pro-Celestia party, and more importantly, the only single non-opposition party that the Monarchists and Alicornists can partner with to pass legislation.” He leaned back on the couch, then frowned and sat back up. “Damn uncomfortable furniture you have in here. A word of advice from someone who’s been in parliament longer than you’ve been alive: get some cushier couches. You’ll thank me when a talking fillybuster means you end up spending a couple of nights sleeping on it. Now, do you understand why you’re voting nay yet, or do I need to spell it out for you?”
Gypsy blinked, but quickly recovered his languid demeanor. “I’m afraid that I don’t see quite what the party makeup of parliament has to do with declaring peace with the Crystal Empire.”
“Well, let me give you a few more clues. This bill is going to pass easily; not a single party is speaking in opposition to it. So in a practical sense, it doesn’t matter how—or even if—you vote. The Conflict Empowerment Act will be history by this evening.” He paused a moment, then continued when Gypsy didn’t speak up. “If I tell you that you’re one of three party members who’ll be voting against the bill, does that answer your question?”
Gypsy frowned slightly, shaking his head. Hold mirrored the shake, looking vaguely disappointed. "It means,” he said, speaking a bit more slowly, “That this is an ideal vote to send a message to the larger parties. We’re kingmakers, Gypsy—but only if the whole CRL holds together.”
“And we’ll be holding together by splitting the party vote on the most omnipartisan piece of legislation imaginable.”
“We’ll be sending a message, you simpleton.” Gypsy bristled, but bit his tongue as Hold bulled on. “The Monarchists didn’t bother consulting with anyone before introducing the bill to committee, because they knew there’d be plenty of votes to pass it. So if three CRL backbenchers vote nay, that tells them that they can’t assume our total support without consultation. We don’t want them thinking that they have a unified pro-Celestia block; they need to know that our support is available, but that if it’s taken for granted… well, what’s 163 plus 15 minus 3?”
“...A minority.”
“Exactly.” Hold stood up, taking a couple of steps in the direction of the door. “None of the party leaders can vote against the legislation, obviously—our party supports the bill, and if we were engaged in the legislative crafting, then the whip would certainly have been sure to lock in a unified vote. Of the rest of us, you, Cotton, and Grindstone had the largest margins of victory last year, so you’re the ones least likely to take a beating for this next election.”
“I finished less than four percent ahead of Straight Narrow, and Clear Mud wasn’t far behind either of us.” Gypsy made a point of staying seated. “I’m sure you know more about parliamentary politics than I do, but I think I’ve got a better handle on my own district. Do you really think this kind of vote won’t come back to haunt me? If a snap poll were to be called soon, I might not even make it to the election. Or do you think the local party apparatus wouldn’t prefer to nominate a candidate who wasn’t on record as supporting war against friendly nations?”
“First of all, you’re not supporting war, you’re opposing peace. Second, and more importantly, I do know more about your district than you do. For example, I know that your local apparatus will gladly continue to support you when you emerge from the coming fiscal quarter with over 150,000 bits in fundraising for your re-election campaign. I also know that there aren’t nearly enough anti-royalist voters in your district to make a challenge from that direction credible, and that the presence of the Grand Western Lumber Mill and associated forestry industry give any CRL member a sizeable built-in edge over the other pro-Celestia parties. As long as your frontbenchers are here to steer some large donations into your re-election fund, you have nothing to worry about.”
Gypsy realized, with some irritation, that he’d let his eyes widen at the thought of an extra six figures for his election fund. He tried to cover it with a glare. “Okay, so I’ll allow that there’s a reason why it helps the party if I vote for war.”
“Against peace.”
“Noted. And, insofar as doing so will give our party slightly more clout when negotiating with the Monarchist/Alicorn coalition, it could even be argued that it benefits my district. Sure, it’s selling out basic morality for the sake of transient secondary benefits, but at least it’s an empty gesture.”
“That’s right.” So far as Gypsy could tell, Hold spoke without a trace of irony.
“Well then, my answer is no. Basic morality matters.”
It was the first time Gypsy had given a flat refusal to the whip. Somehow, he’d expected it to be more. More what, he wasn’t sure, but definitely more.
Instead, Hold seemed totally unperturbed. He simply crossed back to the couch and sat back down across from Gypsy.
“If you’re really concerned about the morality of it, just make sure you don’t cast your vote until we’ve crossed the 176 aye threshold. Then you know it’s—how’d you put it?”
“An empty gesture.”
“Right. An empty gesture. Something devoid of meaning, except for the fact that you’ll be helping your party, which means helping your district, which means doing your job. But other than that, devoid.”
Gypsy opened his mouth, but Hold wasn’t done. “Now, if what you’re actually asking me is ‘How do I explain this to my constituents?,’ then I can help you with that as well. Right now, the Subcommittee on International Trade is reviewing the bill. And our member on the subcommittee is going to propose an amendment that would place a 100% tariff on all timber and timber products imported from the Crystal Empire. Given the economic niche your district occupies, that ought to play well to your base, wouldn’t you say?”
Gypsy did interject then. “Every major party except the Neo-Republicans are some flavor of free-trade. There’s no way you’ll get a majority of the subcommittee to pass that amendment.” He paused. “Wait, is there?”
“Of course not. Even the Neos probably won’t support it; 100% is too high to justify as simple protectionism, and “timber products” is too broad and ill-defined a category. But the point is, our party will propose it, and it will be voted down. And when you have to explain your nay vote on the full bill…” He gestured with a hoof for Gypsy to finish the thought.
“...You want me to say I didn’t vote for war, I—”
“Against peace.”
“...I voted against letting Crystal Empire pine undercut our hardworking timberponies.”
“Exactly.” He scratched his chin. “Actually, I suppose it doesn’t really matter what you say; your district is safe enough to survive some poor marketing on your part.” Hold stood again. “But I imagine you’ll find the town halls a lot more pleasant when you’ve got a line like that to sell them with.”
“So what will happen to the timberponies?”
Hold shrugged. “There are a lot of trees in the Crystal Empire, and they hardly use any for local construction. That’s why they don’t call it the 2x4 Empire, I suppose. So, while I don't know what's going to happen, I'd be very surprised if they didn't start exporting a lot of lumber in the near future.” He looked Gypsy up and down. “Once the high-priority legislation gets passed, we might be able to squeeze some sort of protective tariff through. Of course, we only have 15 votes in a 351-seat chamber, so that would depend on us being able to convince the Monarchists and the Alicornists to back us on legislation they’ll be lukewarm at best towards. Which we certainly won’t be able to do… if they don’t respect the need to keep our party happy as part of a voting majority.”
Gypsy raised an eyebrow. “You’re not being very subtle.”
“Subtle is for the citizenry. When I’m whipping, I don’t like to leave things ambiguous. For example, I’m going to ask you now: how will you vote on 143?”
Gypsy bit his lip, looking back to the poster.
“HE’LL SPEAK FOR THE TREES,” it silently shouted.
“Obviously, I support the immediate normalization of relations with the Crystal Empire,” he slowly said. “But it’s absurd to say that that normalization must be predicated on the disenfranchisement of Equestria’s lumber producers and exporters. I would not hesitate to vote for any bill which safeguarded both Equestrian jobs and foreign relations, and I will never waver from that commitment.”
“Smart lad.” Hold walked to the door. “Vote’s scheduled for 4:45, get there early if you want to make that statement on the Commons floor. You aren’t the only one who’ll be looking to get a sound bite on the record.” With that, he left.
As soon as Hold was out the door, Gypsy collapsed into his seat with a whump. Then he frowned. “He’s right, I should get some more comfortable furniture in here,” he muttered.
Behind him, the poster hung. “VOTE GYPSY MOTH—HE’LL SPEAK FOR THE TREES!” blared the words atop it.
Underneath, in much smaller text, were the words “Paid for by the Party of Celestia’s Rural Laborers.”
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This is brilliant. It does a great job of explaining just how a well-meaning individual could take such a dishonorable action. I feel like I'm watching the original, British House of Cards.
I’m voting for Jeff.
Really good. More politics fics like this would be fantastic.
I feel like I have to be honest, mister whip dude was convincing by the end of it. It seemed so ridiculous it right up until it made a strange sort of sense.
Fixed that for ya.
Ah, the beauty of legislature with multiple small parties...
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I want to vote for Jeff, too...
Ugh. This was well-written, don't get me wrong, but its very existence left a bad taste in my mouth. When the system starts serving itself rather than the ones who created it, something's gone wrong.
And yes, I'm fully aware we crossed that point a long time ago.
This is a genre I adore, done with absolute perfection.
Thank you so much for this, I couldn't have asked for a better fic.
Also West Hold gives me a massive LBJ vibe.
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"A vote for Jeff is a vote for Jeff, duh!"
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Glad you enjoyed it! That's exactly the reaction I was hoping for!
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who the hell is jeff
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Well, he's supposed to be convincing; in fact, everything that he says makes perfect sense. It's just that he's, you know, laying out a perfectly sensible reason to vote for continuing to be at war with Cadence's new lands.
The most generous interpretations here is that Gypsy and Hold are working within the system as best they can. But consider that they (well, Parliament as a whole) are perfectly capable of changing the system to one that doesn't reward this kind of behavior... and they don't even pretend to try. It's easier to be the guy who does "what's best for his district," even when that means voting for something you and everyone in your district self-evidently oppose.
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As if I would ever stoop to that kind of punnery!
something something fillybuster...
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Indeed!
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It's hard to tell from that comment, but I'm going to chose to take that as a compliment. You hit the nail on the head!
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I'm so glad to hear you enjoyed it! That being the nominal goal of the fic, and all
I won't deny West Hold's got more than a bit of LBJ in him, but not too much; I mean, if it were one-for-one, every third word he said would be unprintable in an E-rated fic!
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I'm curious; what form would this actually take?
Like, let's leave aside the fact that Equestia is ruled by a god-queen and suppose that Parliament actually has a degree of democratic legitimacy and real political power here.
Now, Parliament appears to have single-member districts that operate on a first-past-the-post system. Practically speaking, it ought to have many fewer political parties than it actually does in that case; FPTP combines with single-member massively encourages a two-party system. At most, you end up with three, and one of the three is usually, but not always, irrelevant. Canada and the UK are good examples of this... and they're both countries where you can assemble an absolute majority of seats in Parliament while pulling around a third of the total vote.
Their citizenry doesn't get more honked off about that because that 30-35% is usually still a plurality, so you have SOME claim to democratic legitimacy. There are US states where you can win 55% of the vote and still be in the minority, which is the rankest sort of bullshit. TLDR: first-past-the-post systems are HORRIBLE when it comes to democratic legitimacy and a legislature that accurately reflects the preferences of its citizens.
Anyway.
The reason why FPTP encourages two parties is because nobody wants to end up in a situation where someone who is roundly hated by like 75% of their voting constituents winds up taking office because they cobbled together a plurality. So people clump together in political coalitions, making compromises with each other en route to selecting a candidate they all agree to get behind. With multi-member districts and/or some form or proportional representation, you have a lot more viable parties, because you don't need to pre-compromise yourself in this way; you outsource the compromise to your MP.
Like... take Jeff, for example. Jeff has apparently managed to get elected without backing of a party. Good on Jeff! This is very hard!
Jeff is going to get jack shit done without joining a caucus. That caucus is going to make political demands of Jeff and he will have to decide when and how to compromise himself to meet them, because the alternative is not wielding power effectively and thus, not serving his constituents, who have outsourced the need for this compromise onto him instead of needing to do it themselves.
Put it another way; in a FPTP system, generally speaking, you form the political coalition FIRST, and then have the election against the OTHER political coalition. In a PR system, you have the election, and THEN you form your political coalition. Both cases require a coalition, because of that pesky 50%+1 requirement in order to govern, it's just the formation time differs.
Now, this Equestia seems to be in a weird situation where they do FPTP, and single-member, but also have the need to assemble a post-election governing coalition to achieve a working majority. Okay. Fair enough.
But cobbling together a working majority still requires negotiation and compromise of the sort that Gypsy Moth and West Hold are engaging in.
So that brings us back to the question of what, precisely, are the steps Parliament could take that would make this behavior on the part of West Hold and his party unrewarding?
Because I'm honestly having trouble thinking of very many. The only thing that comes to mind is "they could move to a completely publicly financed election model, thus making political actors more ideologically pure because there's less of an incentive to contort themselves towards a donor base to hold power."
But even given that... West Hold is still right. The CRL has a need to wield political power in order to implement its agenda. As a small minority party, it has a need to operate effectively in a political coalition with other parties. And that does, in fact, mean demonstrating that your support cannot be taken for granted.
There's an argument to be made that you should be more honest about this; that the CRL should give support when it feels like it and withhold it when it doesn't based on nothing more than the ideological feelings of its party leadership. There's even an argument to be made that whips and parties shouldn't exist at all and every MP should be allowed to vote either their conscience of their parochial desires 100% of the time.
This would, of course, completely neuter them as a political force, because any group of ponies willing to actually organize themselves and make internal compromises in pursuit of their own ideological goals would kick the living shit out of a group of completely politically atomized ponies who only cooperate when they can achieve complete consensus. But hey, they'd be morally pure on an individual basis, and individual moral purity matters more than anything else, right?
Part of the underlying problem in this specific scenario is that the Monarchists are actually politically idiots in this instance, and whoever is in charge of them has just done fucked up. Because this:
Is political malpractice. The Monarchists cannot govern unilaterally, and require support from other parties. It therefor behooves them to actually consult those other parties. They have offended and alienated their coalition partners in exchange for... well, in exchange for jack shit, really. This is precisely the kind of feel-good, has-overwhelming-public-support bill that you use to solidify your coalition, not to fracture it. You call your other members together, say "This one is a sure winner, guys," tweak the language a little bit according to their input, and then you pass it as a unified bloc, demonstrating to your constituents and your political foes that you are united and powerful and THEY are not.
Instead the Monarchists have made their coalition look weak and fractured. That's dumb.
But circling back around, yet again... there's no systemic way to stop that from happening, I don't think. You can't systemically ensure that the guy leading the Monarchists won't do idiotic things.
I'm not trying to be an asshole here, I'm really not. But if part of the point of this story is that West Hold and Gypsy Moth are operating within a system they're not making any real effort to change, I think that there needs to be some kind of obvious way for it TO change in a way that makes this kind of behavior not be rewarded. There are some tweaks... but in any kind of democratic system political compromise is necessary to get shit done, because it turns out you can't rule as you please.
This story feels intensely real.
I don't recall there being many trees in the Crystal Empire at all. It's a desolate waste outside the influence of the Crystal Heart and inside it's a fully developed city so Moth needs to check the information he's getting from Hold
Damn, that made my head spin. In a good way, mind. ;)
"vaguely disappointed. It means,”"
"vaguely disappointed. "It means,”"?
Man, I wanted to laugh at this, but seeing how politics today is, it just made me depressed.
I really like the story and I think you found a good topic on which writing. The way you portraited the way politicians brought many consideration on which think about.
I hope you'll write other stories regarding this kind of scenario you pictured. It really intrigues me.
Cheers
A beautiful portrayal of realpolitik.
Well, okay, not beautiful. Definitely not beautiful. But beautifully portrayed.
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your image link is broken.
... I want a continuation where it doesn't pass vote because of one vote. Because I love to see things blow up in peoples faces when they try to be too clever.
Very nicely done... and depressing. (That's a compliment to your realistic and convincing portrayal of the characters involved, actually.)
An appropriate subtitle might be: The First Tiny Step on the Road to Utter Corruption.
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Well, the short answer to all that (any block of 22 paragraphs is clearly looking for a "short answer," right?) is: who says Equestria has simple majority voting? I can definitely see ponies having a by-district IRV system like we have near where I live (for local elections, at least), and that might explain the breakdown we see.
If you want to examine how something like this could happen in a simple majority system, though, I think the most likely case is something like this: the Monarchist and Alicorn parties are actually the same party, but with maybe one major area of policy disagreement between them. Ditto the New and Neo-Republicans. Both groups strategically avoid running their candidates in the same district, splitting the map to match their one area of disagreement, with an explicit understanding that they'll caucus together afterword. Well, it could be policy, anyway--the Neo-Republicans less free-trade than the News, say--or it could be something purely cultural. Maybe the only difference between the Monarchists and the Alicorn party is that the former runs on a "Celestia's smart, so let's do what she says" platform, and the latter runs on more of a "PRAISE THE SUN" one.
Then you have the CRL, which is basically an old-school populist party and, like them, is capable of getting a few seats because their support tends to be so concentrated. You have the Anti-Monarchists and the Non-Pony Party, which actually have support that compares favorably to the major parties but only get a small fraction of the candidates because, like most Green Parties, their a minority in almost every district (perhaps they get their candidates in the same way the Greens get into Scotland's Parliament), the Dissolution Party, which is basically the Texas Independence Party if it wasn't run by idiots, and Jeff. Go Jeff! He's probably actually just a Joe Lieberman type, who managed to ruffle some party faithful feathers enough to not get the nod from his party one re-election, but popular enough with the general public to survive a general as "Independent (who's still going to vote/caucus the same way as last time you elected me)."
At least, that's my shot at making sense of it. I don't think any of that needs to/should be considered "canon" to this fic; whatever makes sense to you, I encourage you to keep on believing it!
As for there being "no systemic way to stop that from happening," you're right--that is, as long as we assume that people (ponies) will always try to take advantage of each other to get what's best for them. The thing is, if (and it's the million-dollar if) the other parties were composed of friendly, reasonable folks, there's no reason West should have to try to scrape for every bit of influence. By definition, he's trying to make his caucus matter more than the others, because he's afraid that if they're taken for granted by the almost-majority that they'll matter less, but what's stopping him from going to the leaders of the Monarchist and Alicorn parties and saying "Hey, it's great that this is a bill we all agree on, I know we won't agree on everything, but I'll bet if we work together we can craft some legislation that leaves everybody a little unhappy with what their idea turned into, but a lot happier than they were with the current laws?" What's to stop all the parties from doing that?
Well, there are a lot of very good answers to that question, which I won't insult your intelligence with. But what I think makes this a rather bad-taste experience for the readers is that it's clear that West is skipping right past trying to work together, and straight to taking maximum advantage--and that he's bringing Gypsy along for the ride with him. Maybe that's the only way you can get things done in this Parliament... but it'd be nice if someone would try.
Thanks for the super-detailed comment! It was full of good bits for me to hold on to when I'm thinking about political writing in the future, and I'll try my best to put that insight to good use!
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There was another reader who also found that distracting. My reasoning came via the ol' Hasbro Map of Equestria, which looks to me like it's showing forests on two sides. But apparently one of Berrow's books says that their only export is rocs and rock-stuff; oh well
If it helps, you can imagine that Neither West nor Gypsy actually know what's up there, what with the Empire having just popped into existence a few days ago in an otherwise uninhabited part of the world. West's just saying, it seems like something worth guarding against, you know?
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Grp! Better fix those things. Thanks for the head's-up!
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"Dammit, Jeff, I thought you were gonna vote for it!?"
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And last but not least, let me say thank you to all of you! The range of reactions here is really heartening to see, and I'm glad you all enjoyed the story--for a certain value of "enjoyed," anyway
Love this, was grinning the whole time. Tricky (kinda, maybe) situation, but there you go... but then politics ain't beanbag, and if you're going to make a point, might as well be when it doesn't matter. Funny how it inverts the normal situation of whipping up votes against their particularities because it matters.
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If it helps, it was a damn good story.
Nice story.
Okay, I wasn't expecting to like a pony political satire, but this amused me. Well done.
This.. this made my head hurt.
also, I'm actually probably going to cast a vote for either JEFF or the Party for the Dissolution of Equestria, because I don't care much who we stick on the fancy chair as long as I can turn my house into a fortress that would make a nuclear blast shelter blush.
I am curious how this parliament would look? I would assume the Monarchists, the Alicorns, and the Rural Laborers would be in a coalition of sort, (105+58+15=178, more than the majority of 176 needed in a 351 seat parliament) but what would the rest of parliament look like? Which party gets how many seats and the percentage of votes each party gets? I am generally interested in knowing.
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The scary thing (to me at least) is that this is not some sort of grand cabal, secret society conspiracy machinations, but rather an emergent, unintended behaviour from politicians in the system...Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy anyone?
Conspiracy theorists are in a ways the ultimate optimists because they believe that if you just only "uncover the secret cabal" or "thwart the evil government" the world will fix itself and everything will be fine.
A simple premise, well executed, with some entertaining world-building for the bargain. It had a little too much exposition for my taste, but was still an enjoyable read over all. Have an upvote!
Cracking stuff.
A nice wee slice of worldbuilding, and a good depiction of how apparent rank madness on a political stage can have a series of reasonable actions and thinking behind it.
Wow, I wanted to sock West Hold on the jaw so hard haha. What an ignoramus. This is a perfect example of the shallow machinations that predestines much of what happens in virtually any political system. I do have a little respect for Gypsy left though. Really well written overall.