Should an NDP government accept the right-wing meme that "the mainstream" and "the left" are always at odds?
Does it really make any sense for a future NDP government to buy into the notion of "the mainstream" that Harper and the Conservative press promote...the idea that "the mainstream" is always going to be sharply to the right of the NDP base, and that an NDP government must prove its "legitimacy" by making it clear that the NDP base will pretty much always matter less than those who are dismissive-to-hostile about the party's core values?
It seems like the party's strategists are waaay too invested in the notion that Canada will always be center-to center-right even if the NDP forms a government. This, as the current situation in Nova Scotia is demonstrating, seems pretty clearly to be the path to defeat and failure, or at the best, the reduction of any electoral victory to uselessness.
Wouldn't it be far, far more effective and give a future NDP governmnent far more confidence and freedom-to-maneuver for that government, rather than accepting the "the mainstream is always against us so we have to surrender" argument, to work instead from the assumption that any electoral victory actually is an endorsement of the party's core values, actually does reflect a true swing to the left, and might even mean that the NDP HAS, in fact "moved the center to us"?
Might the NDP be best off of all, as far as that goes, to simply reject the term "mainstream" at all and work from the assumption that Canada is, in fact, a nation of open-minded people who are just as open to left ideas as they are any other ideas?
I think the truth is there is no such thing as 'the western consensus.' Most Canadians are politically centrist and to the left. The Laurentian consensus is still the general political sentiment in this country. The Liberal Party swung to the right since 1993 and are paying for it today with a loss of voter support paving the way for the NDP. And I think most Americans are not politically conservative, either. We need modern electoral systems in both countries.
North America is the last bastion of far right political conservatism in the world. It's holed-up in America and a few English speaking countries at the heart of the banking crisis and still clinging to obsolete electoral systems. The cure for oligarchy and autocracy is democracy.
That is true about the electoral systems.
I like what you're saying in principle, but it isn't realistic to discard the notion of a "mainstream" or a political "center". This does exist and needs to be taken into account to make smart political decisions. It might be accurate to say that Canadians are as open to left ideas as any other, but in practice that's not terribly open. If anything, Canada isn't defined by being left or right as much as small-c conservative, by which I mean they like a nice stable staus quo that doesn't rock the boat. The one exception is Quebec, which has much more of a heritage of radical movements and fighting for change.
So there is a mainstream and it tends to be rightwing, because that's where western culture is at right now. The mainstream is the vast majority of Canadians that want to believe that the current system, whatever it might be, essentially works and might just need a little tweaking now and then, but not too much. The same reticence towards radical politics that has made it hard for the NDP to build support also made it really difficult for the Cons to win the majority that should fallen into their lap when the country lost faith in the Liberals. Like us, they wanted a restructuring of the system itself, which Canadians are uncomfortable with.
The NDP has to walk a line between these people and it's activist base, who want real changes. When they take government, this will be their major challenge.
Might it not be better, rather than using the term "mainstream" to divide voters into the camps of "ideoligical" vs. "pragmatic"?
That would transform the process from one of being obsessed with proving, for example, that the NDP is "safe"(which means phrasing the party's electoral and parliamentary message as "don't worry...we've already surrendered, so you won't even know it's us if we win"), to making the far easier case that ideas that, on one level, are ideas of the left are also, quite simply, ideas that might actually make the most sense in practical terms.
Obsessing on the cult of the mainstream means working under the assumption that, even if a left party gets elected, it didn't REALLY "win" and it can't actually ever act in accordance with its core values once in power. Accepting the assumption that "the mainstream" is always going to reject the left's core values, that it can't ever be persuaded to believe that those values can produce effective and practical policies, basically consigns the left to Blairism-Clintonism for the rest of eternity, if the last few decades are any indication.
Sometimes the NDP are in the mainstream, sometimes not. The same is very much true for Conservatives. It depends on the subject and the degree to which the various interests involved can get people to adopt their opinion.
I think we can safely assume that winning office is not winning power. That doesn't mean that a left party in office has to capitulate on every issue but it does mean that it has to carefully choose select issues where it plans to make change.
I know we have a long list of betrayals by Provincial NDP governments, not to mention an even longer list of supposedly social democratic parties getting modern.
But let's take Mulcair's vision for the NDP at face value. The main things he repeats ad nauseum:
And if you heard from most of the other MPs, their view of the NDP's road to victory was even less compromising.
To me, the rhetoric isn't the problem. Thus far, we've made only small changes in rhetoric, and have done FAR more to cast Steven Harper as radical and out-of-the-mainstream.
I guess I reject the premise. I don't know any New Democrats who think their values aren't essentially Canadian and mainstream. There's a word for New Democrats who buy into right-wing ideas, and they're called Liberals.
You nailed it! Knocked it out of the partk, that ball is going..going..gone!
The NDP is how Canadians view themselves. Survey after survey shows it. We need to start going after both the Tories, but the Libs just as hard so that people don't forget, and we need to start calling out the MSM and TELLING PEOPLE that the MSM, Tories and Libs want to keep people from getting the help, and security they need and deserve. Mulcair is right. The "center" really are New Democrats, but we need to help them see that.
Lets start calling spades, spades, and go after those guys!
But Blairism and Clintonism and Mulroneyism through Harperism are only really possible in countries suffering by dysfunctional electoral systems. One of the most glaring differences between Canada's social democrats, British Labour and U.S. Liberal Democrats is the NDP's promise for electoral reform toward a PR system. When PR is the law of the land in Canada, it won't be the NDP or any other party dictating the political agenda. Not unless they earn a true majority. That means hard work for politicians in the future, and the future of the NDP, I think, lies with appealing to as many potential voters as possible.
The mainstream view today is austerity and belt tightening. Is it working anywhere in the world? No, it isn't. Propping up banks and the financial sector isn't working as the global economy teeters on the edge of another meltdown. Austerity is like blood letting for a victim suffering anemia and malnutrition. Austerity means economic shrinkage and paving the way for oligarchy. With more job losses and nothing but economic malaise in sight from here to 2015, Canadians will find the NDP making more and more sense.
Yea, just look at the PR that the NDP has introduced in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, B.C., and anywhere else they've been elected to a majority.
lol.
And with Liberals handling the referenda in B.C. and Ontario and insisting on double supermajority barriers to success, it's no wonder.
In any case, if this is an NDP echo chamber thread then I hardly belong here.
FWIW, if it is the NDP aim to offer/struggle for some genuine alternative to the status quo (I shan't use the "S" word, don't worry!) , then I would just note that the dominant ideas in any society always belong to the dominant "groups" (notice I didn't say "class" !) . That's just the way it is in any society divided into .... (you know) classes. (OMFG! I used that word!)
Of course a movement could, for as long as it moves forward, come to dominate public discourse. But that would be something independent of the NDP and, well, we don't want that , do we?
lol. carry on.
PR shouldn't be decided by the NDP and Green Party alone. Some of us just don't get that. One must drop this notion that a single party should force PR on Canadians. It will be important for national unity to have more than just the NDP and GP supporting reform of our dysfunctional electoral system. A majority of Canadians surveyed have indicated their preference for PR, and I think a federal NDP government will deliver modern democracy to ALL Canadian voters, and they will do it by the end of the decade.
vs.
ikosmos is correct in this.
Obviously it has to be the party in power that takes the initiative to pursue change through citizen committees and multi-party input.
None have done that.
The reality is that parties that have won through a FPTP system are less likely to mess with the system that recently gave them a "majority".
Regardless what any party says about PR when out of power, when elected it is the backroom that will decide whether or not to make it a priority, and whether or not the process is skewed for failure or success. And this, again, will be determined in the backroom on the eternal guiding principle of: "will this help or hinder party fortunes in the foreseeable future".
I suppose part of the problem is defining what we mean by "left".
When I think "left" in a democratic country, I think of a mixed economy, with a robust safety net including health care and pensions. I think of a government that creates opportunities for its citizens by investting in education, infrastructure, and technology, as well as an ongoing effort to dismantle obstacles that obstruct opportunity based on race, class, gender, religion, disability, and so on. I think of businesses that have to play by ethical rules, so they don't do long term harm to workers, consumers, or the environment. (And that's just based on what we've seen work thus far.)
Regardless of how well a leftward political party polls, those actual principles are popular in Canada. If we've had trouble delivering on them, it's because other principles also compete against them. (Peoples' hatred for taxes being the most salient.)
If by "left", you mean the elimination of private property, the state claiming ownership of businesses in the name of workers, and other changes that would require almost a complete rewrite of the constitution... then we're actually off topic, because that's a very different party and base of supporters than the NDP.
In answer to the thread title - I don't see why not, considering that often the NDP and the left are often at odds!
I don't understand. So what you're claiming is that the reason that provincial NDP governments haven't brought in proportional representation is because Liberal governments in Ontario and BC required a supermajority for their PR referendums?
I fail to see the cause and effect that you're claiming.
For the record we had one government in Ontario. No one can say that the NDP expected to win anything in 1990 much less by phony majority. Petersen's Liberals were cocky and called an election.
Did the NDP have PR on their election campaign in 1990?
Was it a big red book of knee-slappingly hilarious election promises which are, HA! just never realized after an election?
I don't think so.
We need the Liberals to do the proper thing, and that is to support ER to PR in this country. After that we will have to share the place with the L's and Greens, Marxists and whoever else deserves a democratic voice in the halls of power. Dat's the way it should work, anything less is just counterproductive squabbling. The Harpers like it very much when the left is divided against itself and instilling even more power in the hands of those who have it.
PR is no guarantee of progressive governance - just look at New Zealand lately. But at least under PR, a right wing government has to cobble together a majority coalition or gain more than half the vote. The NZ National Party nearly got more than half, a level that no federal CDN party has reached since Mulroney 1984.
There's also Italy, which has had PR since 1945 and a continuous tradition of reactionary, authoritarian and deeply corrupt governance ever since(a tradition that drove some people to the conclusion that the only way to change anything was to join the Brigate Rossi)-EVEN when the governing coalitions included(as they often did)"social democrats" and "socialists".
PR isn't the answer BY itself. Additional measures of building(sorry for the fity-cent words)popular hegemony-from-below are needed.
And all the Harpers have to do is shake Mulroney's legacy for lying about free trade and some other things.
And the airbus affair.
But some time after that it'll be hello conservative majorities again.
And for some reason I don't think so.I think even the coveted phony majority is on the wane under FPTP. Canadians don't trust governments enough to hand them true majorities anymore. Even phony ones are hard to come by these days if robocalls scandal is any indication.
Well, despite what Freeping wrong columnists like Mia Rabson might say, the general public - West and East - are quite leftwing on issues of tax fairness.
Take, for instance, some Abascus Data on corporate taxe rates. Canadians also seem in line on income inequality and tax increases for the rich.
The NDP has a strong mandate to run on an left-leaning economically populist platform. It seems like "moderate" columnists are trying to shape public opinion rather than report it.
I think now would be a good time for the NDP to campaign for rolling back corporate tax cuts. And it makes sense at the federal-national level. That is, it makes sense to raise corp. taxes in unison across the country. This race to be bottom baloney isn't working for governments or Canadians in general. They should pay for the right to play. It's not their damned country even though they act like it is.
Of course, but the eternal problem is the conservative message that hurting the rich is against our interests. Like Carlin said, people will continually vote for (and these are people of modest means) these rich cocksuckers who don't give a fuck about them.
Mack the word 'cocksuckers' is demeaning to women and people in general. Bad language makes for bad feelings they say. I try to keep my punches above the belt but don't always succeeed myself. I know what you mean, though.
Well, even though I didn't indicate it, that was a direct quote from Carlin, not my words. What do you think of the essence of what he said?
Fidel, that is a direct quote from this famous bit.
Yes, that bit. Michael, I have seen you post here on babble and have always been curious, are you the Law and Order Michael Moriarty?
No, and that is the reason I use the status "is not the actor".
lol, i didn't notice that, until now. Sorry.
No offense taken. Carry on.