Previously, party leaders were obliged to pretend to believe in policies before they could abandon them: now that first stage has been eliminated, freeing them to focus on slandering each other’s character and passing out baby pictures of themselves. The day is not far off when parties will have more or less ceased to exist except as extensions of the leader, which if nothing else would be clarifying.
Pride of place, of course, goes to the Conservatives, who have devoted most of the last decade to shedding any vestigial belief systems in the service of electing what they learned to call a Harper government. This was called “moving to the middle,” or in other words giving up, and was greatly applauded by the wisest heads as a sign of maturity. For as long as they continued to believe things they could never win power, and without power they could never put into effect all the things they no longer believed in.
And so the party that was against deficits became for them; the party that wanted to cut spending instead raised it to record highs. The party of tax reform became the party of tax distortions. The party of free markets became the party of corporate handouts and 1970s-style industrial strategy. The party of free trade became the party that banned foreign investment and raised tariffs.
Privatization gave way to nationalizing the auto industry; deregulation to supply management, command-and-control green plans, and mortgage rates dictated over the phone by the finance minister. In time, it became impermissible even to speak of certain things: of social issues, or the rights of MPs, or the right of MPs to speak about being denied the right to speak.
Party discipline was now absolute, again to the cheers of the pundits. For, as it was said, how could the party hope to govern if it would not itself be governed? And wasn’t that really the role of members of Parliament: to shut up and do what they were told?
But the Conservatives are no longer alone. At this weekend’s convention of the New Democratic Party, the great question to be decided is whether the party will prove itself, in the current phrase, “ready for government.” Much speculation has centred on whether it will bow to the demands of its leader, Tom Mulcair, and renounce its commitment to socialism. But in truth, this is merely part of a larger project of renouncing its commitment to much of anything.
Mind you, it’s no sure thing that the party will attain this exalted ideal. Perhaps the odd resolution will sneak through that in some way departs from the status quo, the leader’s wishes or the undiluted pursuit of power. At which point the media, those active volunteer enforcers of party discipline, will again descend to ridicule this impudent individuality, this insult to authority, this failure to do as they were told.
But the greater likelihood is that by week’s end the party will have been fitted to the leader’s bridle, in very like the same style as the caucus. The NDP will, if they are lucky and work hard, prove as indistinguishable from the Conservatives as the Conservatives are indistinguishable from the NDP — chasing the same polls, jumping to the same commands, animated by the same random populism, but purged of any lingering concern with principle, or as it is now called, “purism.”
But wait a minute. There’s a third part to this harmony. Even as the NDP are wrapping up their convention, the Liberals will be electing a new leader, after a demanding six-month campaign in which the central issue was nothing bloody much. It is universally expected they will choose a candidate who, even by the standards of their party, stands for little, and whose record is as unblemished by achievement out of office as in. Needless to say, he now leads in the polls.
His authority will be absolute, owing nothing to either the caucus or even the membership, but having been elected, in the main, by people with no attachment to the party, whose loyalty is entirely to him, or at least his Twitter feed. As such he will have a free hand to take the party in any direction he likes, which on the evidence is straight into the same valley of indistinction where the other two parties await: so far as he has allowed a glimpse into his thinking, it has been to suggest he would not change much of anything.
This is our politics, then, at least for the next two years: three parties offering more of the same, saying little, differing less, wholly in thrall to their leaders, and applauded on all sides for their pragmatism and discipline. Bliss is it in this dusk to be alive.
Original Article
Source: fullcomment.nationalpost.com
Author: Andrew Coyne
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