not so sure anyone cares about skill these days.
Justin would not be PM
Ford would not be Premier. Faith Goldy would not be running for Tornto Mayor.
Trump would not be President.
Jason Kenney would not be the head of yet another new party in AB.
Singh would not be leader of the NDP.
not so sure anyone cares about skill these days.
Justin would not be PM
Ford would not be Premier. Faith Goldy would not be running for Tornto Mayor.
Trump would not be President.
Jason Kenney would not be the head of yet another new party in AB.
Singh would not be leader of the NDP.
Snap.
I think Singh is not very good but it is still shocking to see him on that list. Would he throw Indigenous people under the bus like Trudeau? Not sure. Maybe, but maybe not.
The three others are mean nasty people who enjoy hurting other people and believe in policies of hurting people.
As much as Singh and Trudeau may be stunned and incompetent and maybe even not sincere and caring -- they are not out to do harm on purpose as the reason they seek power. The three others, I think are in a whole order of nasty that I cannot put Singh in. As much as I dislike Trudeau, I cannot even put him in.
But I get your point -- when it comes to abilities it is likely a fair list. Sad that we don't seem to elevate real talent to political positions often. When we do elevate talent, that talent might be used to create policies that are harmful.
To me this is one of the most important political realities: selection of PM -- who to vote for -- should not be based on who is the best alone but who is on your side.
Let's take two people from the political past: I don't care if Harper would have been smarter, more competent, more skilled or a more competent PM than Layton. I care about the fact that Layton was basically pulling mostly in the direction I want to go. Harper for all his competence was going against everything I believe in.
This is critical and important that everyone understand if we are going to get real informed voting. People should stop having the experts tell them who is best. They need to ask who is best for them. The answer is not objective or universal. Sure some are incompetent -- but the measure has to be twofold -- competent yes, but on your side and compatible with your values. The choice weighs all and being on your side is even more important than competence. I would take an incompetent Layton (not sure if he would have been competent or not- just an example) over a (more) competent Harper.
In this sense, I do not know if Singh is the best leader of the NDP but put him on that list and I would say he does not belong. As far away as he might be from me, he is miles closer than any of the others.
It is important that we do not fall into the all politicians suck dynamic because when we do, we stop determining which ones suck more and which ones are on our side and which are violently antagonistic to what we stand for.
This is the sad reality around Trudeau. Trudeau got there in part becuase of his father's name. But he also got there by sucking slightly less than some of the alternatives for enough of the people. He lied and that helped him as well.
At the end of the day, parties choose their leaders. We have to choose among the limited choice those parties collectively give us. I do not agree with a false equivalency that places my next likely choice Bernier, Scheer, Trudeau and Singh as equally bad. In that list I ranked them for me from worst to best the odd one could go up or down a rank but I always will have a ranking for them and vote accordingly. Give me a better choice and I will reject Singh. (I did not put May on that list becuase I am not sure right now where she would be -- that is something I have to answer before I vote.)
Quizzical, I have seen enough of your writing to know that you have strong principles and a strong sense of collective justice. I know you may struggle to make a choice among a bad list but I know that you can see which of these are worse than the others -- for you. I am confident you will make your choice, like we all will, by deciding what is most important for you and which candidates and parties are the closest among all of them on those issues. Like you, for me it looks like this may be difficult next time but it is not impossible.
