The Political Ant

Evolutionary Dead Ends: The Political Ant

We are accustomed, these days, to the kind of ant that swarms every time a new crop of queens hatches. Rather move than fight. No exoskeleton, figuratively speaking. But it wasn't always that way. There used to be a sterner breed of ant ...

The mound was built under a teetering boulder, which provided shade, shelter, security, and a promise of impending doom. But the boulder had been teetering for ages, so it must have been all right. Only a troublemaker would make a fuss about it.

Like all ants, the political ants were divided functionally. The queens were born to rule. The soldiers were born to die in foreign wars. The workers' function was to support everybody else. And the pundits were there to explain everything.

The hatching of the queens was the occasion for intense activity throughout the mound, for the ants had to decide which queen they wanted. Each potential queen had the chance to discuss the most pressing issues of the day and advance her own solutions. Of course, none of them ever did that.

In the last recorded Queen Race, Queen Dee opposed Queen Dum. The race caused much scurrying because of the deep substantive differences between the contestants. The issues provided ample opportunities to separate the candidates.

Some of the more observant ants had begun to ask why the boulder kept rocking like that, and some of the cleverer and ... bolder ants decided to have a look. The clever ants marched (single file, of course) up to the boulder to have a look ... and noticed that the boulder rested on a rather insubstantial perch. These ants went back from time to time and found that the insubstantial perch was getting rapidly less substantial. So they broadcast their findings to the rest of the mound.

"Say," said the clever ants, "the rock under the boulder is eroding away, and the boulder is going to come crashing down and kill all of us unless we do something. But it won't be that hard, if we act now. We just need to move a piece down the road and build a new mound."

"Then let's start planning how to do that," said Queen Dee.

"Ah, ha!" cried Queen Dum. "Radical, homemound-hating extremists with a political agenda! The boulder is fine! Moving is unpatriotic, expensive, and too hard! Vote for me!"

"What political agenda?" asked the clever ants. "The issue is getting squashed flat or not getting squashed flat. Which queen you support is irrelevant."

"Queen Dee came out in favor of the radical extremists," said Queen Dum. "That proves that it's all a plot to elect her. And if we do get squashed flat, they have no proof that it will be because of ... what they said."

"We don't have any political agenda," said the clever ants, but that just proved that they did.

"This matter will require careful consideration," said Queen Dee. "Long and careful consideration."

"You can't touch the Boulder Issue in an election year," explained the pundit ants.

Some of the ants were noticing that there wasn't as much food around as there used to be. They wanted to know what the queens were going to do about it.

"With the growth of our mound, we've been straining our old food sources," said Queen Dee. "We need to develop alternative food sources and tighten our belts a bit, conserve more."

"It's the damn leafcutters," said Queen Dum. "Moving in on our territory and eating our food. I will keep the leafcutters out and throw out the ones who have already moved in."

"Well, of course, we must deal with illegal leafcutters," said Queen Dee.

"Queen Dee needs to present a comprehensive leafcutter reform plan, like Queen Dum's," opined the pundit ants. "No one wants to hear about austerity or anything new during an election year."

Then there was the matter of soldier ant deployment.

"We should think about bringing our soldier ants back closer to the mound," said Queen Dee.

"The swarming ants will eat our eggs and murder us all in our tunnels!" cried Queen Dum. "Now, that's something you should be terrified of, not that falling boulder bullshit."

"Well, of course, I strongly support the War on Swarming Ants," said Queen Dee, "but we have to pick our wars intelligently, based on whether there is a real threat to our mound."

"Queen Dee doesn't support our soldier ants!"screamed Queen Dum. "You can tell by all the fancy weasel words."

"I most certainly do support our soldier ants," countered Queen Dee. "The best way to support them is not to put them in harm's way in unnecessary wars."

"Oh, she doesn't want to fight to win!" replied Queen Dum. "That's not supporting our soldier ants! Have you checked her complexion lately? Some think she's not our species. Not me, of course. Just sayin'."

"Queen Dee has a soldier-ant-support issue," droned the pundit ants. "She's going to have to address that. Of course, it's impossible to talk about peace in an election year. But what do you think about the species issue, huh? I think it's silly, of course, but what does the electorate think? That's the question!"