An Election Parable
Once there was a beautiful grassland where a pride of lions and a herd of deer lived. The deer thrived on the grass and vegetation. There was a big lake well-populated with fish. The lions mostly caught and ate the fish but when they felt like they needed a delicacy, they hunted the deer- particularly deer fawns.
A time came when the lions got greedy and hunted so many deer fawns that the deer got very alarmed.
They went to the lions and the leader of the deer said, you lions have to stop hunting our young so aggressively, otherwise, we will become extinct. Without our herd eating the vegetation and maintaining the grassland, the forest trees will encroach and you will have to migrate. You will also lose the lake and your steady supply of fish.
The leader of the lions said, maybe, but we are happy as we are. We have enough to eat and we do as we please. Why should we stop?
The deer leader said, perhaps some of the other lions don't think the same as you. So, how about we put it to the vote. The lions and deer will vote on this question- ‘Should the lions reduce their over-hunting of deer fawns? Yes or no’.
The lions agreed to hold such a vote. All the lions and the deer had to come to the lakeside and cast a vote.
The leader of the deer told his herd: your lives, your homeland, your children's future-all these are on the line. You need to go vote. You can save your children’s lives with your vote.
But when voting day arrived, some deer were at the far end of the grassland, munching on a green patch. They said, we have a good thing going here, and there are enough other deer to go vote no.
Some other deer said, I don't like our leader, I want a better leader. So I will neither vote no nor yes.
Yet others said, we are not involved with politics, we don't really understand grassland-level issues and, in any case, we are fine with the way things are. Why go vote.
Some deer said, my lion friends told me I am a honorary lion. I will be fine either way. Lions need to hunt deer, that's the system.
Yet other deer said, if we don't GOTV hard enough, whatever happens is our fault.
Those deer who understood what was at stake turned up and voted no.
The leader of the lions told his pride simply, this isn't a question of maintaining the grassland or co-existing with deer, this is a question of your identity. Are you fish-eating cats or are you proper and proud lions who should be able to hunt any number of deer, for food or pleasure?
That got all the lions fired up . They all went and voted yes.
The difference in voting enthusiasm between the deer and the lions had an effect. The Yeses exceeded the Noes. The lions won the vote.
The lions continued hunting as before. The deer lost a lot of their young to the lions' hunting. The deer leader said to his herd, it was your vote to cast, and these were your children you could have saved by voting.
When those deer who hadn't voted lost their children to the lions, they cursed the deer leader for not being a better leader.
Other deer who hadn’t voted said, we were right to say nothing will change. The system is bad and nothing could be done except overthrow it.
Some other deer who hadn’t voted, said, well, the system is the system. We have to survive in it. If we have to die, so be it.
The activist deer blamed themselves - we didn't reach enough deer or if we did, we didn't do enough to persuade them to vote.
The lions relentlessly hunted the deer on the grassland until the number of deer was too small to hold back the forest. The lions had to migrate to a different grassland. There was already a lion pride living there and there were frequent fights among them. There was a lake which had fish in it but it had many crocodiles, too. There were no deer to hunt. There were, however, wildebeest with nasty horns; much more difficult to bring down. The lions had to work much harder to feed themselves and stay alive.
The end.