The purpose of the NDP is as a containment device for Liberal crazies. They all support the Liberals whenever needed, but in the meantime they are in a separate party, so the Liberals don't get blamed for their lunacy. Of course, Liberal "moderation" is only a matter of style, not actual government, so both sides get what they want: the crazies get ultra progressive government, and the Liberals get to be the ones delivering it.
The blip between 2011 and 2015 when the NDP formed the official opposition and tried to take a moderate position was the anomaly in the NDP's history: it's always been a loopy, left wing organization. Even the fabled blue collar trade union influence was pretty out there, with union leadership espousing left wing ideology that was pretty far out of step with the actual practical pocketbook interests of their membership. They've never had anything resembling a realistic program. I remember being stunned at their platform plank of pulling Canada out of NATO in the middle of the Cold War!
Going with Avi Lewis and his progressive nonsense is true to the soul of the party. Their aging boomer-dominated membership might as well go with it. Maybe they'll build a new coalition to carry forward. Maybe the NDP will finally just die and go away, as seemed to be their fate in the post-Broadbent era when they also lost official party status.
I don't think they're boomer dominated at all for membership. I know tons of millenials who are true NDP believers. Boomers are more in the liberal camp when they're not conservative - just my take on things.
If you look at the photos of the turnout at NDP leadership events, it looks pretty old and grey. Slacktivist enthusiasm isn’t the same as actually participating in the party.
You raise an interesting point. It also means the people who are determining leadership may not represent the people who vote at the ballot box. (The millenials I know do vote at the ballot box, but I think they'd vote for any NDP, no matter how extreme. They view it as the party that cares about the individual and can do no wrong - no matter how hateful the party ideas may be to groups other than themselves.)
Except they keep spewing Jew-hatred, promote officially entrenched anti-white racism, promote and support violent terrorist Islamist and other cults with openly public hate-speech, and all this is tolerated by the "Liberals" and their media. That IS relevant for normal people, at least it should be.
Sometimes (like, every day now) I really wonder whether people grasp that democracy itself is under severe and increasing existential threat -- and, if they do, whether they want to rescue it or deliver its death blow.
Between overt and violent antisemitism on the left, whose adherents now find themselves defending the Islamist regime in Iran, and ultra-nationalist fetishists on the right who nonetheless think foreign interference operations are a-ok as long as *they* benefit, I'm not sure whether to keep defending democratic values against entitled ideologues or give up and build a bunker.
You are correct. Build the bunker as a hobby backup if you wish, however it is much better for us normies to get together and electorally bulldoze the fanatical lunatics on both right, and these days mostly on the left into a deep hole and cover up with thick heavily reinforced concrete.
Old Mordechai Richler joke, from when he really did cover an NDP leadership convention in, yes, Winnipeg:
"You go to a Conservative convention to get drunk, to a Liberal convention to get laid, .... and to an NDP convention to get twenty-five pounds of pamphlets."
Leftists respond to us by criticizing us, of course, for our happiness. You jolly happy-go-lucky right wingers just don't *care* about all the suffering and misery and injustice in the world," they scold. "You only care about trivial things like working for a living, providing for your families, and raising your children to be good productive citizens.
Poor Tom Mulcair, outflanked by Trudeau. I was one of the few people that voted for the NDP under his leadership, continuing my winning streak (I voted for the Kim Campbell led PCs as well). I can't say how successful the NDP would be under Avi Lewis, but I can say I won't be voting for them, regardless of the quality of my local NDP candidate.
Today's NDP has swept aside its Prairie pragmatism roots along with any residual interest in blue collar workers and morphed into a social club of white collar professionals, public service union leaders, eco warriors and self anointed experts in Middle East politics.
This leftist coalition's ambitions are laser focused on extracting a good living and pension courtesy out of the rest of us who ante the pot and dream of Freedom 70. For all the chest thumping the NDP does for getting daycare, dental care and free condoms for all, there was no strings attached was there? White collar workers with two incomes bringing in $200,000 per could get $10/ day daycare even if it displaced a single Mom desperate to find a space. All of the lard financed by borrowed money is a problem for someone else to solve.
If the NDP social club goes ahead and elects Lewis as leader expect more of the same, perhaps even worse. Anyone who thinks that government run grocery stores is sound policy and good use of scarce funds is so far outside mainstream thinking it's not worth any more comment.
This is it exactly. The private sector union members I know, have values that are much different from those of the public service unions. Avi Lewis comes from an academic and cultural milieu that is completely supported by the blue collar workers. There is little real reciprocity because, as you say, the households that work effectively in government services, or are clients of the state, like the Canadian film and media industry, have secured greater resources within urban areas and so work to protect those interests.
$10/day daycare allows for more discretionary spending in those households, while single mothers who would truly benefit, get to work and have a chance at social mobility. Those are two different things.
Maybe the NDP's motto should be 'Think globally; extract locally.' Funny how one's sense of social justice, so often aligns with self-interest. It's not even the hypocrisy of the Left that bothers me, it's the assertion that they aren't. The sense of moral certainty is unearned.
I'm surrounded by this in Victoria, BC: Double government income (and pension) households earning $300m++, with 3 cars, 2 vacations a year (by jet), driving policy. Academics with the vaguest, slight understanding of life for the 70% who don't work for the state.
These folks are happy to prostrate themselves for an ideal of an indigenous culture that ignores unpalatable truths (war, slavery, including women and girls, executions, theft), ignore the movement of peoples for thousands of years, promote nonsensical ideas like government grocery, rely on magical thinking to ignore they are direct, privileged beneficiaries of capitalism, rank identities by moral virtue and use the ranking to justify their bigotry.
The NDP is unelectable again, now they've chosen Lewis, who embodies this example. Leaving aside the group in every party that can't think critically, or strategically, I do wonder if they've decided they don't care.
I prefer prairie pragmatism; my moral "certainty" (meaning contingent) is well earned.
"...less concerned with reading the room, more willing to try to convince it of the righteousness of his cause."
So many examples of failure, destruction, unnecessary suffering and deaths can be traced to this root cause. Politicians who think this way love their ideas more than people, and destroy the community. Eby is our current poster child; his party is about to be vaporized and he (and his cabal) own it.
IIRC the NDP was Canada’s representative at some international organization of socialist states along with Cuba and Russia some 10-20 years ago. But the world has moved on. They enjoyed a fair bit of support when they were an organ of big unions and lost it when they started lining up with Toronto Rosedale weirdos and other “silk stocking socialists”. Not sure if the fall of the Berlin wall has sunk in. Mayor Chow seems to be one of the last NDP socialists standing.
Indeed. You nice person, let us remind ourselves that if NDP held power, we would live in a horrendous dystopia. The likes of them do that to any society where they get power for any length of time. Ever since the Bolsheviks set the example with their boundless fanatical bloodthirst. Do not believe for a second that the likes of the current NDP "candidates" are not capable of that.
I think NDP has largely been more radical for huge chunks of time. They may make themselves seem more palatable to voters at times, but the NDP is not a party of moderation, which is why Canadians have never handed them the keys to the country. If they wanted to pull votes from the liberals they'll need to be more towards the center. If they want to stay irrelevant, well, then Lewis would be the guy I guess.
I think Mr Lewis will tire of the banality and sheer grind of Canadian electoral politics long before his dreamed-of Revolution arrives.
One rule-of-thumb I personally have for NDP politicians is to determine how comfortable they appear to be in Saskatoon on a random February day. Ones who seem like they might be comfortable in such a place and situation do relatively well (in my mind, anyway). Ed Broadbent and Jack Layton fall into this category. I imagine Jagmeet Singh was never comfortable in such situations since he rarely visited. I can't picture Mr Lewis and his wealthy anti-capitalist wife wanting to visit either. I guess we'll soon find out.
Totally irrelevant party with no future.
Did no one show up for your birthday party? Sorry about that little guy. It'll be okay.
The purpose of the NDP is as a containment device for Liberal crazies. They all support the Liberals whenever needed, but in the meantime they are in a separate party, so the Liberals don't get blamed for their lunacy. Of course, Liberal "moderation" is only a matter of style, not actual government, so both sides get what they want: the crazies get ultra progressive government, and the Liberals get to be the ones delivering it.
And "moderates" who vote Liberal keep wondering why Canada gets worse and worse, but aren't self-aware enough to realize it's their own fault.
Kinda like how the Conservative Party of Canada has the PPC as a containment device for the Right wing nut jobs.
Correct, except PPC voters are too principled to go for it, and CPC didn't put through conservative govt when they had the chance under Harper.
So, actually, not correct.
Let's hope they go full Mao.
Let's hope Carney doesn't think it is a race to get there.
Now that he has engineered a faux majority for himself, there is a very real risk that his actual "Values" may come roaring back.
The central banker, Goldman Sachs, CEO of a major multinational kind of values?
Have you read his book?
Nah.
So you're asserting that Carney is a communist?
Get back to me after reading his book.
I'm a busy guy. Run 3 business, family, all that stuff.
Why don't you just tell me why Carney is a pinko?
The blip between 2011 and 2015 when the NDP formed the official opposition and tried to take a moderate position was the anomaly in the NDP's history: it's always been a loopy, left wing organization. Even the fabled blue collar trade union influence was pretty out there, with union leadership espousing left wing ideology that was pretty far out of step with the actual practical pocketbook interests of their membership. They've never had anything resembling a realistic program. I remember being stunned at their platform plank of pulling Canada out of NATO in the middle of the Cold War!
Going with Avi Lewis and his progressive nonsense is true to the soul of the party. Their aging boomer-dominated membership might as well go with it. Maybe they'll build a new coalition to carry forward. Maybe the NDP will finally just die and go away, as seemed to be their fate in the post-Broadbent era when they also lost official party status.
I don't think they're boomer dominated at all for membership. I know tons of millenials who are true NDP believers. Boomers are more in the liberal camp when they're not conservative - just my take on things.
If you look at the photos of the turnout at NDP leadership events, it looks pretty old and grey. Slacktivist enthusiasm isn’t the same as actually participating in the party.
You raise an interesting point. It also means the people who are determining leadership may not represent the people who vote at the ballot box. (The millenials I know do vote at the ballot box, but I think they'd vote for any NDP, no matter how extreme. They view it as the party that cares about the individual and can do no wrong - no matter how hateful the party ideas may be to groups other than themselves.)
In my mind, they are irrelevant no matter who they choose to lead the party
Except they keep spewing Jew-hatred, promote officially entrenched anti-white racism, promote and support violent terrorist Islamist and other cults with openly public hate-speech, and all this is tolerated by the "Liberals" and their media. That IS relevant for normal people, at least it should be.
Sometimes (like, every day now) I really wonder whether people grasp that democracy itself is under severe and increasing existential threat -- and, if they do, whether they want to rescue it or deliver its death blow.
Between overt and violent antisemitism on the left, whose adherents now find themselves defending the Islamist regime in Iran, and ultra-nationalist fetishists on the right who nonetheless think foreign interference operations are a-ok as long as *they* benefit, I'm not sure whether to keep defending democratic values against entitled ideologues or give up and build a bunker.
You are correct. Build the bunker as a hobby backup if you wish, however it is much better for us normies to get together and electorally bulldoze the fanatical lunatics on both right, and these days mostly on the left into a deep hole and cover up with thick heavily reinforced concrete.
Old Mordechai Richler joke, from when he really did cover an NDP leadership convention in, yes, Winnipeg:
"You go to a Conservative convention to get drunk, to a Liberal convention to get laid, .... and to an NDP convention to get twenty-five pounds of pamphlets."
There's no joy on the left, lol.
NPR published a study last year showing the left are the least happy on the political spectrum. They offered no theories.
Some suggest the left's sole political objective is for everyone to be unhappy - equality of outcomes LOL!
Leftists respond to us by criticizing us, of course, for our happiness. You jolly happy-go-lucky right wingers just don't *care* about all the suffering and misery and injustice in the world," they scold. "You only care about trivial things like working for a living, providing for your families, and raising your children to be good productive citizens.
Uh, yeah....
Hey ... how about all that NDP antisemitism?
Poor Tom Mulcair, outflanked by Trudeau. I was one of the few people that voted for the NDP under his leadership, continuing my winning streak (I voted for the Kim Campbell led PCs as well). I can't say how successful the NDP would be under Avi Lewis, but I can say I won't be voting for them, regardless of the quality of my local NDP candidate.
Today's NDP has swept aside its Prairie pragmatism roots along with any residual interest in blue collar workers and morphed into a social club of white collar professionals, public service union leaders, eco warriors and self anointed experts in Middle East politics.
This leftist coalition's ambitions are laser focused on extracting a good living and pension courtesy out of the rest of us who ante the pot and dream of Freedom 70. For all the chest thumping the NDP does for getting daycare, dental care and free condoms for all, there was no strings attached was there? White collar workers with two incomes bringing in $200,000 per could get $10/ day daycare even if it displaced a single Mom desperate to find a space. All of the lard financed by borrowed money is a problem for someone else to solve.
If the NDP social club goes ahead and elects Lewis as leader expect more of the same, perhaps even worse. Anyone who thinks that government run grocery stores is sound policy and good use of scarce funds is so far outside mainstream thinking it's not worth any more comment.
This is it exactly. The private sector union members I know, have values that are much different from those of the public service unions. Avi Lewis comes from an academic and cultural milieu that is completely supported by the blue collar workers. There is little real reciprocity because, as you say, the households that work effectively in government services, or are clients of the state, like the Canadian film and media industry, have secured greater resources within urban areas and so work to protect those interests.
$10/day daycare allows for more discretionary spending in those households, while single mothers who would truly benefit, get to work and have a chance at social mobility. Those are two different things.
Maybe the NDP's motto should be 'Think globally; extract locally.' Funny how one's sense of social justice, so often aligns with self-interest. It's not even the hypocrisy of the Left that bothers me, it's the assertion that they aren't. The sense of moral certainty is unearned.
"the sense of moral uncertainty is unearned" !!
I'm surrounded by this in Victoria, BC: Double government income (and pension) households earning $300m++, with 3 cars, 2 vacations a year (by jet), driving policy. Academics with the vaguest, slight understanding of life for the 70% who don't work for the state.
These folks are happy to prostrate themselves for an ideal of an indigenous culture that ignores unpalatable truths (war, slavery, including women and girls, executions, theft), ignore the movement of peoples for thousands of years, promote nonsensical ideas like government grocery, rely on magical thinking to ignore they are direct, privileged beneficiaries of capitalism, rank identities by moral virtue and use the ranking to justify their bigotry.
The NDP is unelectable again, now they've chosen Lewis, who embodies this example. Leaving aside the group in every party that can't think critically, or strategically, I do wonder if they've decided they don't care.
I prefer prairie pragmatism; my moral "certainty" (meaning contingent) is well earned.
"...less concerned with reading the room, more willing to try to convince it of the righteousness of his cause."
So many examples of failure, destruction, unnecessary suffering and deaths can be traced to this root cause. Politicians who think this way love their ideas more than people, and destroy the community. Eby is our current poster child; his party is about to be vaporized and he (and his cabal) own it.
IIRC the NDP was Canada’s representative at some international organization of socialist states along with Cuba and Russia some 10-20 years ago. But the world has moved on. They enjoyed a fair bit of support when they were an organ of big unions and lost it when they started lining up with Toronto Rosedale weirdos and other “silk stocking socialists”. Not sure if the fall of the Berlin wall has sunk in. Mayor Chow seems to be one of the last NDP socialists standing.
Are they meeting in the Convention Centre or the basement of the old Bay store?
NDP, No Democracy Party, is DIE = DISCRIMINATION, INTOLERANCE, EXCLUSION, and should DIE.
Subtle, as usual. Luckily, if you don't like them, you don't have to vote for them
Indeed. You nice person, let us remind ourselves that if NDP held power, we would live in a horrendous dystopia. The likes of them do that to any society where they get power for any length of time. Ever since the Bolsheviks set the example with their boundless fanatical bloodthirst. Do not believe for a second that the likes of the current NDP "candidates" are not capable of that.
I think NDP has largely been more radical for huge chunks of time. They may make themselves seem more palatable to voters at times, but the NDP is not a party of moderation, which is why Canadians have never handed them the keys to the country. If they wanted to pull votes from the liberals they'll need to be more towards the center. If they want to stay irrelevant, well, then Lewis would be the guy I guess.
I think Mr Lewis will tire of the banality and sheer grind of Canadian electoral politics long before his dreamed-of Revolution arrives.
One rule-of-thumb I personally have for NDP politicians is to determine how comfortable they appear to be in Saskatoon on a random February day. Ones who seem like they might be comfortable in such a place and situation do relatively well (in my mind, anyway). Ed Broadbent and Jack Layton fall into this category. I imagine Jagmeet Singh was never comfortable in such situations since he rarely visited. I can't picture Mr Lewis and his wealthy anti-capitalist wife wanting to visit either. I guess we'll soon find out.