Membership, Base, and the Direction of the NDP

I'd like to see the 'base' of the NDP defined - how are they any different from other NDP members?

But there are some "side issues" also raised in that post. At least I hope they are becoming side issues. But even if they are, they are still active irritants to having a productive discussion. So I'll address those first.

First point. If the direction of the party shifts, it is not going to be anything so dramatic and overt. It will happen in stages, and be on the surface not so different than what we already have. It will be as much what is not done, as what is put forward.

"The establisment" never did try to shove something down the members throats by the way. Did you notice how many establishment figures came around to Mulcair? Especially as it came down to Mulcair or Topp. If there was anyone-but-Mulcair from them, they would have NEVER supported Mulcair.

It was most of Jack Layton's inner circle that was behind Topp. Thats not the same as "the establishment". They are the people with their hands on the most effective levers- as would always be the case. And its understandable that got a resentful pushback. Nor is it any small advantage. But it was never what it was cracked up to be by its opponents. That showed in the end [it was not the membership rising up against the establishment, a meldromatic joke]. But a lot of people here- not just or mostly Topp supporters- were saying that from early on.

In fact, its weird how there was a hyped up narrative here about how weak the Topp campaign was. Let alone that was just wrong. How does one square that with an establishment shoving things down people's throats? Now that its all over, maybe people can step back and see how much of this was hyped up narrative that is a natural consequence of competition.

Anyway....

What the members/base who we agree are not sheep react to are egregious positions taken. What those of us with reservations about Mulcair have feared is that the NDP will not do because it is deemed to be 'not safe' in the goal of 'moving the centre to the NDP'.

We're never going to agree about whether those reservations were/are well grounded. It is definitely debateable. But the other side of them being questionable/debateable is that they should not be just waved off. And the CERTAINTY that the members/Caucus/base would never allow a drift to being never anything except a centrist positioning party is a form of waving off the concerns.

Again getting ahead of the discussion: I agree that we CAN keep the party from going to where even most Mulcair supporters on babble do not want it to go. But it is simply not true that Leader and Caucus cannot go there without us. In fact, it's pretty easy.

The point being that a membership resistance to party drift is quite contingent- it is not that Leader and Caucus cannot drift against our will. And the suppossed control on Leader of fear of splintering the party is a paper tiger. The worst case is a very disgruntled base-which is always something that party elites will avoid, but balance in calculated fashion against the perceived benefits in voter appeal that come with the same things that piss off the base. [Which by the way, if the moves are successful with voters, strongly tend to later mollify and bring back around said disgruntled base. Part of the disgruntled will even come around before actual signs of success.]

ETA: we seem to have cross-posted there BB. You are full of good questions this morning. :)

And that's why I wrote the post before. I figured we needed to clear the decks on some of this stuff. Granted, I may have aggravated rather than cleared. But clearing was the hope.

BB has a good question about what 'the base' is.

Its both larger, and in many ways smaller than the membership.

Its larger than the base because it is all the party's solid supporters. The people most motivated to support it. It is complicated and fruitless to draw any lines of what that is. It even includes lots of people who do not always vote for the NDP. But there is conceptual clarity to the contours.

For example, it does not include people who typically switch tothe Liberals or Conservatives. But it includes a lot of people who go back and forth and have as much allegiance to the Greens or the BQ.

It definitely includes a lot of people who are generally dissatisfied with the NDP, and who would never be members. Plenty of babblers fit both these 'types'.

The Conservatives have a very similar base. Whether people are in or out the party per se is less complicated. But there is a similar tension around dissatisfaction, but typically people do not go elesewhere. If they get really unhappy they withdraw whatever level of active support. But typically, they come back around.

But the Liberals dont have a base- at least nothing like what the Cons and NDP have.

The sense that the base might be also smaller than the membership, is that there are MANY members who are much more passively engaged than are people who are outside of the party. But its not really about level of engagement. We use the term 'base' to apply to the people that are the most engaged, who care the most. But even when very passive about being a member- which the bulk of Cons and NDP members are- members are part of the core base.

As I said before, it wasnt the establishment that pushed the Topp candidacy. It was the bulk of Jack's team.

Since they have most of the meaningful levers in a campaign, it understandably looks to people like "the establishment" acting. But it was not at all a unified establishment- "just" most of the currently most powerful and capable part of it.

And "the establishment" changes in its composition over time. More to the point for us: the most powerful part of the establishment changes on a dime with changes in leadership.

Even without having named most of his team, Mulcair and that team are the core of the establishment now. The individuals of Jack's core team that stay- if any a few months from now- will be no different than the rest of the new inner circle.

Good definition. And along with that goes the fact that the establishment is a much larger group that people who are currently weilding something like everyday influence on the deliberations inside the bubble.

When it come to the basic direction of the NDP, and the party eltes... it is VERY much about Leader/Caucus, not the larger establishment.

We just happened to just pass through a period where the power and influence of the larger and longer running establishment ecclipses Leader and Caucus. The dynamic during the period of a leadership race is not the norm. Not at all.

The larger establishment certainly weilds influence on the shaping of the direction of the party. At times that is even insitutionalized within the inner circle. And the longer a Leader is around, the more overlap there is between establishment and Leader/Caucus inner circle.

But that is all playing into the dominant role of the Leader/Caucus in shaping the direction of the party, as far as the party elite goes.

For example, Ed Broadbent was influential because of his relationship with Jack Layton and Jack's inner circle, not because he is Ed Broadbent, key member of the establishment. He's still key member of the establishment, but with no influence on the inside. And that would have happened even if he had not taken all those very sharp pokes at Mulcair.

I'd say the establishment is too fluid to list and too open to debate.

The definition as I expressed it could be read expansively or restrictively as well -- I think it is a continuum not a state of being.

It's just that using the word "establishment" in the context of the NDP sounds so weird to me. I always had the NDP pegged as the anti-establishment party (now I just know Spector is going to dump on me, so I'd better run and hide  ).

Interesting, WCG. I watched the convention on CBC, and Mr. Topp looked quite anxious on the fourth ballot, as if he already knew what was coming down.

that may well be true but interestingly, and right here on babble, we were told by Mulcair supporters that Topp would be done on either the first and for sure by the second ballot. That narrative wasn't remotely true.  Topp was 2nd and stayed 2nd throughout. Interestingly enough, on the 2nd and 3rd and final ballot support for Topp remained steady and increased to 46%.

It sends a strong message to the new leader that there is strong support for maintaining the course of change started under Layton. I'm glad nobody dropped off because we would never have known.

I think those in the know on the Mulcair team knew that Topp was second. In hindsight, we should have known that if Nash wasn't doing well in BC there was no way she was second.

why of course they knew and hence why on here he was being hammered by their online crew, and why Singh got to play the bad candidate and take on Topp so Mulcair could look all positive and "above the fray". I'm sure there was lots of stuff behind the scenes that just couldn't come to the fro because of damage to the NDP image. Heard some stuff...

Well, that's interesting - I thought we were all agreed that the drift of the NDP to the right began with Layton.

And the Bay Street Conservabrals followed the NDP in lock-step fashion. They had no choice, really. By the time Lewis convinced Trudeau to fall in line with neoliberal ideology by 1975, there was no turning back. [/parallel world]

You're assuming a connection between Mulcair's on-line supporters and his central campaign team to the extent that the on-line supporters knew the member contact information across the country (which may have been erroneous).

Some people have been doing something like this.