IT’S JUST A THOUGHT: THE “POLITICAL DOPPLER EFFECT”

I was just thinking:

The reason why some of our African politicians, especially those in power fall from grace and lose favor with the voter is lack of understanding of what I call, “The Political Doppler Effect.”

The Americas Heritage Dictionary defines the Doppler Effect or Doppler Shift as:

“A change in the observed frequency of a wave, as of sound or light, occurring when the source and observer are in motion relative to each other, with the frequency increasing when the source and observer approach each other and decreasing when they move apart. The motion of the source causes a real shift in frequency of the wave, while the motion of the observer produces only an apparent shift in frequency.”

To explain it simply; imagine you are standing by your local market and you hear the siren of an ambulance from far down the road. You look and see the ambulance speeding your way and the siren’s pitch gets higher and higher as it approaches but as the ambulance zooms past you, the pitch gets lower and lower until you don’t hear it.

The fact is that the pitch doesn’t change at all but what does are the sound waves as they become more spread out and arrive at your ears at a frequency lower than that of the actual siren relative to where the ambulance is at the time.

Imagine then, that the man sitting by the market is the politician you elected into office and the ambulance is the voter. For the politicians you voted into office to hear your cry, your needs and know how you feel at any given point, they must be where you are at any particular moment, meaning they must keep pace with you. When they stand still, the voter’s opinions begin to fade from their ears until they can’t hear you anymore and then they start governing the way they feel and forget the people that voted them into office. Promises made are ignored.

Our political leaders need to understand the Political Doppler Effect and keep pace with our thinking because remaining seated by their air-conditioned offices, driving their taxpayer-fueled latest Land Cruisers, they will never know or have informed opinions of the voters. They will do what they want or think we want. They will jostle for power forgetting the reason why we gave them power.

As a marketing person, each time I developed a new product, I would step out of my shoes, my thinking, and let the consumers step into my shoes for me to determine whether they perceived that product they same way as I do. Is it what they want? Will it make their lives better? We both have to view it from the exact same position and once that is done, I will know how to communicate through advertising and even fine tune the product to their needs.

Similarly, the Political Doppler Effect needs to be understood otherwise you will remain sitting in your comfort, oblivious to the fact that you are wounded and the ambulance, the voter, has moved on.

Even as I write this, following Mr Donald Trump’s Presidential Election victory in America, it is evident that the Democrats, did not understand the consequences of ignoring The Political Doppler Shift. On this our African Continent, there are political leaders who either do not understand, or simply ignore the Doppler Shift. Politics is a science.

 Keep pace with us and the pitch of the sound you hear will be the same as one "catching our drift".

It’s just a thought.