The Problems of the Conservative Party Should Worry Us All.  

Images courtesy of CBC and Wikipedia

 

Okay, left-wing people are celebrating the fall of Jason Kenney. Someone who didn’t do his job to protect his people from COVID, who sold out to Big Oil and made the province vulnerable to the economic consequences climate change, has been punished. Good. Serves him right.

I’m not so happy.

As federal and provincial Conservative parties fracture down the usual lines, the spectre of radical rightist populism raises its ugly head.

“Our Shared Values”

The losers in Conservative leadership races keep whining about shared values. Wishing doesn’t make it so. The only shared value I can see in the various factions of the various conservative parties is that they all believe that a good leader is a tyrant who will hold them together through force of arms. This person then proceeds to tread all over their rights and beliefs and antagonize a whole bunch of them.

Divided Conservatives.

Besides the west/east divide and the rural/urban divide, and the federal/provincial divide, the conservative movement at all levels in Canada is divided between social conservatives and businessmen.

Social conservatives really believe in banning abortion, don’t see the reason for gay marriage and inclusive language, and feel their personal beliefs are being trampled on. These people are primed to vote for a “strong leader” who will promise to lead them to…well, safety, I think.

I’m worried about these “real” conservatives. They are vulnerable to populism. I’m tired of TV ads for investing and political parties and credit ratings that shrug their shoulders, grin and say, “It’s easy.” Because the next line out of the actor’s mouth is always, “Let us do your thinking for you.” Politics, economics and the stock market are not easy, and if you go into any of them without doing a lot of homework, you’ll fall victim to the sharks.

The other half of the right wing are business conservatives, who got into politics to influence the government to stay out of the way of their money-making schemes. These people want to be leaders so they can run things the way they want to.

These are the two sides to any right-wing party, and believe me, never the twain are ever gonna meet.

What is the Left Wing doing Right?

Their usual trick was illustrated lately, to the great dismay of the Conservatives. Leftist politics in Canada consists of two parties: a centre-left and a far-left. They pretend to compete for a few left-leaning liberals, but the Liberals attract a lot of centrist votes by not being the NDP, and the NDP covers the left by being themselves. Then, when it really counts, they can vote together in the House of Commons and get leftist bills passed. Cue the right-wing indignation.

The Solution

We need a viable conservative-values right-wing party to lure the social conservatives out of the populist party. This would allow the centre-right conservatives to have a moderate right platform and attract the centrists and form a minority government with the help of the farther-right party, without scaring off the centrists with a far-right platform.

Otherwise, the right wing’s subtle and carefully thought-out policy of “anyone but Trudeau” is going to backfire when the Liberals present a new candidate as “somebody who isn’t Trudeau” in the next election.

What Can the Rest of Us Do?

Don’t treat people like they’re idiots, just because they don’t believe in the same things you do.

I’m not a “turn the other cheek” proponent, but there’s such a thing as too much “predictive response.” You’re not allowed to strike back before the other guy hit you first. Remember that you threaten these people more than they threaten you. You have time and progress on your side. They are outnumbered and outgunned. Stop driving them into the arms of Maxime Bernier and Pierre Poilievre