I’m thinking maybe I should just do a whole “Politicians Say the Darndest Things” series because a good few of them appear to be fully committed to fitting both of their fancy-shoed feet betwixt their depressingly loose lips. I’m not remotely religious, but I know enough to recognise the tenor of the preaching happening on the political pulpits these days. It’s not prosperity gospel, but austerity gospel. Instead of blinged-out TD Jakes and Creflo Dolla telling us that we can get like them if we give them all we’ve got, we have a growing cast of well-fed characters working overtime to convince us that to sacrifice is noble and to starve is divine.

Following hot on the heels of the Sports Minister who chastised us about our lack of savings and unwillingness to sacrifice (and doubled-down even as she claimed she was misquoted), there’s the MP for Port of Spain South who—appalled at the public pushback on the party line—has revealed that he intends to lead by example and ride his bike to court. He further advised people who can’t afford gas to cook the food generously provided by the government to eat salad or return to their coal pots.

Not to be outdone, the Minister of Dry Taps and Blackouts suggested (the sermon begins at about 1:15:00) that we cut back on thrice-weekly movie nights, monthly hams and macaroni pies to make ends meet before launching into his pièce de résistance: an analogy that appears to cast the citizens who have granted him his lofty position atop a public utilities system in decline as tantruming children who don’t know what’s best for themselves.

One might wonder why they would want to torpedo their own political party this way… if one didn’t know that their boss has publicly referred to the people who handed him his own comfy seat as indisciplined and the society which he is tasked with governing as violent. The same man once replied to questions about his government’s plan to handle domestic violence by informing us all that he is “not in [our] bedroom” (though he recently pulled an about-face on this one), so if anything, they’re all singing from the same hymnal.

The hymn: “Allyuh Too Spoiled”

That this is coming from people living quite comfortably on money gifted to them by the people they’re chastising is not lost on me. That their descriptions of the average Trinbagonian’s lifestyle are so hilariously off-base is giving very much “I don’t know how the poors live” energy, which is ironic given that not a single one of them besides MP Scotland (who I’m looking forward to seeing on his bike) has volunteered to sacrifice a single thing, even though they benefit from a staggering number of perks and tax exemptions themselves.

It’s not at all surprising that they’re flailing around this hard and this outrageously to convince us all that we’re just too selfish to cut back on our monthly hams and nonstop feteting. After all, the more noise they make and the more rapidly they make it, the less time we have to stop and consider what they’re actually saying. If they can’t gaslight us into believing that we’re all spoiled children, then perhaps they can just baffle us with bullshit, like suggesting that bike-riding to work is feasible in the tropical land of narrow, potholed roads and colonial dress codes.

Unfortunately for them, it’s difficult to sell people dreams on an empty belly. It’s a lot easier to convince people that their problems are caused by another ethnic group/religion/professional sector/gender, etc. when things are good. But when times get hard, people tend to get less gullible. Ent we all have to make adjustments to suit the circumstances? The current circumstances are only going to make it harder and harder for people to believe that the folks starving alongside them are the reason why they can’t make ends meet. Especially when the people who have been tasked with leading this country for the past 60 years are somehow still living high on the hog and demanding more sacrifice so they can stay there.

To borrow an analogy from the Minister of Mauby-Coloured Water, when the household is in disarray, whom do we look to hold accountable? The children? Or the parents? Surely the nation’s self-proclaimed mommies and daddies know that the distractions and obfuscations that worked during the “ham, lamb and jam” years won’t be nearly as effective during “guava season”.

As a wise man (who believed quite strongly in feeding the poor) once said, “Whoever has ears, let them hear.“

Allyuh listening?