Try talking to people
Are you recovered from the shock? Congratulations! You’ve unlocked the black-belt level in #canpoli cynicism.
I mean, gah. Even the wind was being theatrical Monday morning.
The opposition parties just lost their best argument. No wonder they all want an election right away. They will totally continue to try and score points on Trudeau’s generalized unpopularity by tying everything back to him. Whether this will work with the people who don’t drive around with Fuck Trudeau flags on their pickup trucks, I have my doubts.
That said, if they want to beat Pierre Poilievre’s dourer-than-thou-everything-is-horrible platform, parties that oppose his MAGA-lite vibes need to get their fingers out of their arse and start offering something that voters (you know, real people who work for a living and don’t talk to their friends like they’re in the middle of a graduate seminar) something they might actually want to vote for.
A positive, inspiring message, you know? Something that might make people look forward to their daily lives improving. Explained with simple, clear language and examples taken from real actual humans.
In February last year, I said this:
If I were advising the Liberals right now, I’d say get your shit together. Stop dithering on things that matter, take a fucking stand on moral issues and give people a reason to vote for you because they believe you’ll help mitigate the effects of this affordability crisis that’s touching most people.
One of Oscar Wilde’s characters describes a cynic as someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. And if that doesn’t summarize right-wing politicians right now, I don’t know what does.
The reason populist politicians are doing well these days is because so many people feel worse off now compared to a few years ago, and younger folks feel like the system is rigged against them, especially when it comes to being able to buy a house. By and large, Poilievre speaks using short and simple words, one-liners and other rhetorical devices of the easily fooled to fool easily the kind of people who couldn’t tell a split infinitive from a Cartesian coordinate system.
Yes, I am a member of the really annoying Laurentian elite gang. (I can be that way in French, too - aren’t I just a peach.) But this isn’t about me. There is a huge untapped political market in this country of reasonably well-informed, smart and successful people who are desperate to hear plain language and common sense from politicians who aren’t mini-Trumps.
You can’t just say you’ll fight for the middle class like Trudeau has been repeating since forever to ears that can no longer hear those words. You have to say what you’ll do and those things have to be convincing enough to, well, convince voters. Like that dental care program and cheaper daycare. Why the party hasn’t promoted the dickens out of those I will never understand.
I wish the Liberal party would run to Sean Fraser and freaking beg him to take the lead. He is a fantastic communicator who talks straight and he’s not at all weird like some Rhodes scholars we could name. Mark Carney will get all the Economist subscribers but he won’t connect with normal people because he isn’t one of them. We’re so done with princes.
There is a crying need to reframe the narrative to match people’s desire to live in a country where the rules make sense, people who behave as best as they can don’t get punished, where the basics are affordable on a normal salary, and where law-abiding people are generally protected from crime.
There is nothing attractive in a party that’s been in power for nine years telling me I need to keep voting for it despite everything I’m not getting in terms of benefits just because it’s run by a bunch of people who think they’re superior to anyone else.
As sales pitches go, it’s pretty lousy. So there you go, Liberal party. Get your shit together already and fight this campaign as though it mattered. Because it does.
