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frandroidThis post is a quick follow-up to sabotabby's podcast friday post about Conservative electoral prospects, which I agree 100% with.
Althia Raj, who writes from the Star but who I know mostly from the CBC The National's top political hot takes panel, discusses the type of political prospects that the NDP has, and the conservative nutjob harassment that they're facing, which wasn't a thing before the pandemic. Some MPs like Charlie Angus talk about how everyone says the Cons will win but that they're playing to the base rather than trying to win a larger crowd. So there's hope in that. But the number of NDP candidates who can properly talk their way out of this Conservative nonsense this well is fairly limited, and frankly the number of liberal MPs and candidates who can do this effectively is limited as well. That's the problem when you get opportunists joining a winning wave instead of people fighting tooth and nail for a seat. Not that Trudeau won on a huge wave even in 2015, but he definitely had a wave of opportunists coming in.
From south of the border, I discovered a podcast that discusses American electoral politics, namely how Democrats can defeat Republicans. It's named Words To Win By. This episode discusses in particular how a bunch of progressive Democrats turned MAGA messaging on its head, and how the Democrats won bigger than expected during the 2022 midterms.
I wish that the NDP listened to this stuff. As you can see above, some individual New Democrats get it, but the leadership remains as liberal and milquetoast as ever. I feel that the NDP, when it comes up with the wins that it has extracted from the Liberals to keep them in power, also detailed what they left on the table, telling Canadians how much better things could be if they actually ran the country* . So they could use these agreement announcements as long term campaigning events as well.
* : One of the problems is that I don't think the NDP wouldn't push the envelope that much; but as one of my NDP luminary friends recently reminded me, you better campaign left of yourself because no one ever becomes more left when they're in power.
sabotabby's podcast friday post about Conservative electoral prospects, which I agree 100% with.Althia Raj, who writes from the Star but who I know mostly from the CBC The National's top political hot takes panel, discusses the type of political prospects that the NDP has, and the conservative nutjob harassment that they're facing, which wasn't a thing before the pandemic. Some MPs like Charlie Angus talk about how everyone says the Cons will win but that they're playing to the base rather than trying to win a larger crowd. So there's hope in that. But the number of NDP candidates who can properly talk their way out of this Conservative nonsense this well is fairly limited, and frankly the number of liberal MPs and candidates who can do this effectively is limited as well. That's the problem when you get opportunists joining a winning wave instead of people fighting tooth and nail for a seat. Not that Trudeau won on a huge wave even in 2015, but he definitely had a wave of opportunists coming in.
From south of the border, I discovered a podcast that discusses American electoral politics, namely how Democrats can defeat Republicans. It's named Words To Win By. This episode discusses in particular how a bunch of progressive Democrats turned MAGA messaging on its head, and how the Democrats won bigger than expected during the 2022 midterms.
I wish that the NDP listened to this stuff. As you can see above, some individual New Democrats get it, but the leadership remains as liberal and milquetoast as ever. I feel that the NDP, when it comes up with the wins that it has extracted from the Liberals to keep them in power, also detailed what they left on the table, telling Canadians how much better things could be if they actually ran the country
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Date: 2024-03-09 03:34 pm (UTC)I often wonder if they fuck up on purpose. I have students who feel like for whatever reason they are incapable of being successful academically, so their strategies include avoiding doing anything (so that they can blame laziness/perfectionism for their failure) and being absolute dickheads (so that they can blame the fact that "the teacher hates me" for their failure). I don't think, deep down, the NDP leadership sees itself capable of forming government, and the best they can do is be a principled opposition. This is at war with trying to please people who would never vote for them by being Liberals Lite. But because they keep fucking up, no one can say "well, this particular politician just isn't appealing and/or sucks at their job."