Political Sanity and Common Sense

The public hopes that the political elite will hone their common sense so that rational thinking can develop sensitivity toward the fate of the people.

KOMPAS/HERU SRI KUMORO (KUM)

J Kristiadi

A few weeks after celebrating the New Year of 2022, the public, being driven by new hopes, has begun to anticipate the tough challenges facing the nation in the future. The dangling threat before our eyes is the death of common sense being trampled over by the power of post-truth politics and populism. Both movements are toxins that kill rational thinking as their collaboration produces various lies, ranging from plainly to very sophisticatedly disguised sham that the people are not aware that the narrative or video they are following is a hoax.

The stratagem of the two political approaches result in the public's sanity being lost and becoming misled. In fact, the content of lies smacking of segregative nuances of ethnicity, religion, race, and sect (SARA) is proven to provide social legitimacy for intolerance movement. In turn, civil society becomes weak and loses its dignity.