Like many people, today I received my form in the mail for voting in the Liberal Leadership race. I have voted strategically for Liberal Candidates a couple of times in my life and so I didn't mind taking part in their experiment in democracy. I don't know if the experiment will amount to anything but I figure that any effort at bringing more democracy has got to be worthwhile.
I continue to suspect that Justin Trudeau will be the next Prime Minister. I certainly could be wrong (and I have been before), but to me it just looks like things are trending that way. Of course, die hard, arrogant Conservatives glibly talk about making (metaphorical) political mincemeat out of Trudeau. But for a number of reasons (some of which I have already stated in past blogposts) I just don't see it that way. Sure, Trudeau has less experience than those in the Harper war-room, but many times in politics it is just a matter of who is no the right side of events that comes out on top. And history just seems to be on Justin's side.
Despite the historical hatred that many in the West have for the Trudeau name I think (from the voter acquisition point of view) he has a lot more positives than negatives. Many older people will vote for him for pure nostalgia's sake. And overall I think many voters in Canada are hungry for a Prime Minister with youth and charisma. After years of a Prime Minister who seems to live in the Shadows and never comes into contact with average people, I really think voters will react positively to a young, charming guy like Trudeau who, I very much suspect, will be something of a return to a bygone era of apparent openness and accessibility. Whether he will REALLY be open and accessible is a different question, but his past actions suggest he will at least give that impression to voters. And once Canadians get a return to a leader who actually talks to the media and answers unvetted questions from reporters and actual people, they will suddenly see what they have been missing and it will change the game. I really believe that there will come a time when a vast majority of Canadians will look back at the Harper years with horror and see it as a kind of national nightmare. And regardless of the real man behind the public image of Trudeau, I think that people will breath a sigh of relief at the image of a young, apparently open, charming, talkative guy being PM.
As for all the talk of Trudeau not have any substantive policies, that is just silly. Politicians haven't generally presented substantive policies in the public eye for years. Harper came to power with a view vague platitudes and a ruthless campaign of telling people he was "different" from the Liberals. If a lack of meaningful policies precluded someone from becoming a successful politician, Harper would be managing a corner-store now.
Anyway, I will place my vote (for whatever it is worth) in the Liberal Leadership race, and we shall see what transpires. It seems clear that Trudeau will at the very least win this part of his battle. And if he does become the twenty-third Prime Minister, let us hope, at the very least, that he will end that part of the Harper years which has been a systematic and ruthless effort at the destruction of our democracy and House of Commons.
Katalog Dapur Aqiqah
10 months ago
8 comments:
I thought you were a Dipper Kirby. Nice to know all it takes to sell the rest of us out is a pretty smile and the right last name.
Having your blog archive vibrate is a real freaking pain.
Really Ryan?? That is what you call a "sell-out?" Someone who take part in a democratic process to choose a Party Leader? I have never joined any party and I grew up in the States where you can be an "independent" and take part in the primary of either major party. That doesn't make anyone a "sell-out." Furthermore, where did you see me say I was voting for Trudeau?????
By the way, as far as I am concerned the NDP is pretty much a sell-out anyway and far too right wing for me.
@ Anonymous - HUH??
When I supported Gerard Kennedy for Liberal leader in 2006 I had some particularly nasty Iggy supporters telling me to go join the NDP because I was too left wing and left wingers were ruining the Liberal party. Now I regularly get called a right wing neo-liberal by Joyce Murray supporters on Twitter. But it's all good because I absolutely reject random partisans barking stage directions at me which is about all the terms left or right seem to be good for anymore. Our FPP electoral system makes all parties lean the same way and wherever the winds of power blow, there they are running left or right to catch up.
The NDP is too far right for you so you what turn to the Liberals? Justin Trudeau is right wing even by Liberal standards.
I hope you see Justin for corrupt con artist he is someday, before its too late and he becomes worse then Steven Harper.
@ Bionic - I think it is fairly clear that the Liberal Party adopted a fairly straightforward 'neo-liberal' position in the 1990s as a corporatist ideology became more entrenched in our political discourse. It is not just the "rightwing" of the LPC that is neo-liberal, it is the modern thrust of the party. And I think that most people in society fail to understand the degree to which our political system has changed to service corporations. Take a simple issue such as corporate taxes. We have shifted the entire tax burden to working and middle-class individuals thus chronically underfunding governments, while corporations have taken their savings in taxation and simply made more money without creating more jobs or wealth for Canadians. It is a very simple fact that most liberals and all Conservatives deny because they support a growing corporate power in society and see large corporations as the path to individual wealth and power for the elite.
You may think it is "all good" but it is a process of the gradual impoverishment of the majority and the growing wealth and power of a small minority. Even the NDP has no real program to address the growing power of this ideology.
Ryan - Please reread my post. I DON'T SUPPORT JUSTINE TRUDEAU - OR ANY LIBERAL.
I simply said I think he will win for various reasons and that I was taking part in the voting process because I think as an experiment in democracy it is an interesting idea.
Please read more carefully Ryan.
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