Darth Harper

A sinister force sweeps across the land!

Two-thirds of Canadians believe Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government is too secretive and has failed to govern with high ethical standards, a new poll has found.

The national survey conducted exclusively for Postmedia News and Global Television by Ipsos Reid also finds that after seven years in office, half of the country still believes that Harper has a “hidden agenda.”

The polling results offer some politically disconcerting news for the Conservatives as they approach the midpoint — May 2 — of their majority mandate and as the Liberals enjoy renewed popularity associated with Justin Trudeau.

So here we have arrived. Seven years in power and apparently millions of Canadians believe that the PM has a hidden agenda. All the while the PM is suppressing fiscal conservatives and so-con backbenchers who question, albeit timidly, his policies. Could we perhaps have a balanced budget sometime soon? Could we deliver a pro-forma condemnation of an obvious moral wrong like sex-selective abortion? Nope. Why? Because that would be controversial!

There is, in fact, a hidden Tory agenda: Pretend to be conservative while governing from the centre.

That's a story that will do little to advance the MSM's narrative. The above story is almost a set-piece for Justin Trudeau. Spend a decade repeating the message that Stephen Harper is secretive, unlike say Jean Chretien and Pierre Trudeau who were models of transparency, and voila people think Stephen Harper is secretive. Few people pay much attention to politics. That makes it very easy to convince the electorate something is true simply by repetition. The only people who are immune to such messaging are those who are a) keen and mostly dispassionate political observers b) natural supporters of the Conservatives.

Note that Conservatives are not demonized by the MSM for what they have actually done, leaving aside exaggerated scandals like Robocalls or prorogation,  but for how they are perceived. The argument is not that the Harper Tories are more devious than their predecessors, merely that the people think they're more devious. Not too hard a trick to achieve when your job is to influence public perceptions. A trick made even easier since politicians are held in decreasingly low regard.

Then there are the blatant plugs for Justin Trudeau. Plugs that are, by the strangest coincidence, juxtaposed with this or that Tory failing. The message is clear enough: Look at those horrible Conservatives! Oh, did you notice the young and fresh newcomer Justin Trudeau? Wow, he's a real change isn't he? Isn't his family beautiful? Doesn't he give such inspiring speeches?

That's the "news" sections of the papers. This is the editorial page treatment:

Fickle as polls can be, Trudeau has shown himself to be the party’s best hope for redefining what it means to be a Liberal today and for reclaiming the broad political centre where most voters are comfortable. No other contender comes close. Progressive voters seem to be turning to Trudeau as a youthful, energetic agent of change even as Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government begins to feel stale-dated and Thomas Mulcair’s New Democrats lose momentum.

Not what Justin has done. Not what he will do. Only that he's really popular and so you should vote for him too.  The Toronto Star, the largest newspaper in Canada, is asking you to vote for Justin Trudeau because of peer pressure. Hey, all the other cool Leftists are voting for him, so why don't you? Wanna be a square and vote for Stephen Harper?

The whole thing is begging for an after school special staring Scott Baio.

This is what Canadian politics has been reduced to: High School cliques warring amongst themselves. Meanwhile the debt piles higher, our entitlement crisis grows and the old Third World is becoming the new First World. Either we become a serious country again, or events will do that for us.

 

Comments

[Jimmy Levendia]

I laughed out loud reading this. If there were a better example of the absolute cluelessness of the average Canadian, you'd be hard put to find it. Ol' Papa Machiavelli was right: people judge only by appearance, and are not interested in reality. As long as you call yourself a Liberal in this country, you can commit conservative policy with impunity (think the balanced budgets and massive civil service cuts of the Chretien/Martin era). Hell, I remember the frantic sound and fury when Mulroney brought the GST in evaporating once the Liberals reversed themselves and kept the tax. Truly, people are ignorant sheep in this country: "four legs good, two legs baaaaaaad!"
Sorry, fellow devotees of reality, but this genuinely tickled me. I've been reading to much Mencken lately...wonder why.
We on the right need to begin a Gramscian Long March Through Institutions ourselves, camouflage ourselves as liberals, socialists, and progressives while advocating free market and conservative policy. Judging from the sand-pounding stupidity of The Masses, this is probably the only way to conservatives won't be accused of having a hidden agenda. "Comrades! Taxes must be reduced and onerous bureaucracy must cease oppressing the working classes! Who are the working classes? Why, those who are productive, of course! Don't YOU want to be productive, comrade? What are you, a reactionary parasitic lackey of bourgeois bureaucracy?"
Truly, democracy is the funniest form of government ever invented.

[Fenris Badwulf]

Ah, the 'low information voter' meme, which points at Plato 'democracy does not work'. Oh right, he called it rule by the mob.

Does Democracy work?

[Jimmy Levendia]

My dear Badwulf, it is bad taste to make accusations of Platonism among Aristotelians:)

It is more accurate to say that democracy is workable, if certain requirements are met: ancient commentators like Polybius believed that the best government is a mix of democratic, aristocratic and monarchical features- the American Founders took that insight to heart in designing their government. Representatives who are at least somewhat well rounded and not mere venal vote-assembling automatons (coughMcGuintycough) would be good, as well as a population which sees public affairs as important, as worth thinking about.
Democracy is not some Platonic Form that, once instituted works flawlessly, automatically, without any other input from the population except for the occasional vote.

[Cytotoxic]

In short no democracy is evil and self-destructive. And yes, we do need a long march through institutions using whatever means necessary to do it-lying, cheating, treachery. Think of it as 'libertarian Taqiyya'.

[Roseberry]

First, recall the brief media crush on Joe Clark, young,Western, bilingual, and such a *progressive* Conservative, a Tory that Liberals could love but not necessarily vote for.

Second, federal politics seems like high school politics because it is high school politics, driven by twenty-something staffers who have grown older without having grown up.