Voters Swiping Right on Vibes: Democracy’s Tinder Tragedy
The anti intellectualism of our modern society will have a cost. The cost will be our democracy.
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Let’s clarify: the voting booth is not a dating app. It’s not Tinder, Bumble, or whatever godforsaken platform the kids use to catfish each other with filtered selfies and witty one-liners. Yet here we are, in 2025, watching voters swipe right on candidates based on vibes, feelings, and the eternal question: Who would I rather have a beer with? Spoiler alert: it’s a terrible way to pick a leader, but it’s the system we’ve got because critical thinking is apparently on the endangered species list.
Take Mark Carney, for instance—our poster boy for technocratic smugness. Imagine him clutching a pint of lukewarm lager in a pub like it’s a live grenade. He’d probably have a full-blown meltdown if the bar didn’t have a wine list longer than a CVS receipt. “House red? HOUSE RED?!” he’d sputter before discreetly spitting it under his chair like a toddler rejecting broccoli.
This man has spent his life in boardrooms and climate summits, not knocking back IPAs with the lads. And yet, voters are out here sizing him up like he’s auditioning to be their Friday-night drinking buddy, and he’s doing well with his regular guy schtick.
PP wore his regular angry guy apple-chomping schtick out long ago.
It’s idiocy dressed up as democracy.
But can you blame them? No, really—can you? In the age of Twitter (or X, or whatever Elon’s calling it this week), we’ve turned politics into a parasocial soap opera.
Candidates aren’t judged on policy or competence but on how well they’d fare in a hypothetical sitcom episode. Mark Carney: The Awkward Years. We’ve got people out here voting for the guy they’d “vibe” with, as if governing a country is just a long, cosy Netflix binge. It’s not.
It’s a job—one most of us wouldn’t trust our group chat to handle, let alone a nation.
The root of this madness? We all fancy ourselves as smart. Nobody struts around, thinking, “You know what? I’m an uninformed twit who should probably sit this election out for the good of the country.” Nope.
Polls consistently show that well over 50% of people think they’re smarter than average. Wrap your head around that for a second. Eighty per cent of folks reckon they’re above the midline, and most of them couldn’t explain why that’s mathematically impossible if you gave them a calculator and a week.
But they’re not wrong about one thing: they feel smart. And feelings are the currency of the vibe vote.
Because here’s the dirty secret: most of us aren’t informed. We’re not reading white papers or dissecting trade-offs. We’re scrolling X, liking memes, and nodding to whatever hot take confirms our biases. So when it’s time to vote, we’ve got nothing real to lean on—no facts, no analysis, just a gut instinct and a vague sense of “this guy seems cool.” And this is not just a youth thing, generation X is no better.
It’s why Carney’s been able to coast by, hiding his radical “I’m smarter than the markets” schtick behind a polished suit and a climate change obsession. He’s the guy who’d tell you there are no trade-offs to focusing solely on green agendas—except, oops, there are, and he’s failed at that, too, just like his pal Trudeau. But who’s checking? Not the vibe voters. They’re too busy imagining him sipping pinot noir at Davos to notice the scoreboard.
This isn’t just funny—it’s dangerous. When we vote like we’re casting a reality show, we’re begging for demagogues to swoop in and charm us with their dazzling smiles and empty promises.
Anti-intellectualism isn’t some quirky cultural footnote; it’s a wrecking ball.
We’ve spent decades dunking on nerds, experts, and anyone who dares suggest that maybe, just maybe, governing is harder than picking a craft beer.
And now we’re shocked—shocked!—that our leaders are fishbait for every populist grifter with a megaphone. We are surprised when Trump gets suckered by Putin’s flattery.
We’re getting what we deserve: a society so impoverished of thought that Mark Carney can waltz in, flash his credentials, and convince us he’s the answer to problems he’s helped create.
The irony? We could fix this. We could demand better—of ourselves, of our candidates.
But that would mean admitting we’re not as smart as we think, that vibes aren’t enough, that maybe we should crack a book or two before pencilling in that ballot—fat chance. We’d rather keep swiping right on the fantasy than face the cold, hard truth: democracy’s not a rom-com, and Mark Carney’s not your soulmate.
He’s just a guy who’d rather sip chardonnay than fix your potholes. Cheers to that.
