Mulcair's Failure: Wedge Politics

[Scott Mayers]

Mulcaire's failure is due to favoring special interest groups in opposition to other groups rather than appealing to individuals. I'm social democrat in principle but don't believe the NDP is being representative of this. AND, they are not being democratically responsible. Their party, as with the rest here in Canada, are exclusive clubs that create the ideals and platforms behind closed doors and don't welcome those who don't belong or can't financially contribute. So the voices that gets to be represented by them are limited to the large group pluralities that merely have the goal to oppose the group interests of the Conservatives or the Liberals. And that's why they will NEVER succeed unless they alter these factors.

Multiculturalism, as the Liberals had introduced, was clever to assure we will always see the traditional cult as the most significant minority and prevent the individual from being recognized in any party platform that could survive here. So Mulcaire's NDP is only becoming a different form of Conservatives as the rest of the parties are. But even given their agreement to Multiculturalism they lack the powers of the groups in consolidation because it is impossible to favor all cultures without excluding specific ones no matter what.

[Big Guy]

Looks like the first political knife has been thrown at Thomas Mulcair. The leadership convention will be in April and it will be interesting if this first dissatisfied member will lead to others;

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/01/06/thomas-mulcair-cheri-dinovo-ndp-leader_n_8923498.html

The NDP is trying to rebuild. Jack Layton got the NDP the Opposition position through his personality and when he died, Mulcair tried to take the NDP more to the center, losing not only most of the support of labour but also some hard core NDPers.

The membership will have to decide just what they are supporting (just like the Conservatives).

I do not think that Mulcair will survive this leadership review.

[SpankyMcFarland]

Gee, if Harper and the Conservatives were so bad, how did they end up as the official opposition ?

Mulcair couldn't even salvage that much.

Four left-wing parties, one right-wing party is why. The true believers had no alternative.

[August1991]

Mulcaire's failure is due to favoring special interest groups in opposition to other groups rather than appealing to individuals.

I disagree. Mulcair's failure was misunderstanding modern wedge politics. Trudeau Jnr made it: Harper vs Him.

But thanks for bringing this thread back to the OP.

Looks like the first political knife has been thrown at Thomas Mulcair.

IOW, the Canadian left will subdivide, split. Edited January 11, 2016 by August1991

[Scott Mayers]

I disagree. Mulcair's failure was misunderstanding modern wedge politics. Trudeau Jnr made it: Harper vs Him.

But thanks for bringing this thread back to the OP.

I question what you mean by the presumed "wedge" here specifically. Mulcaire DID stand for a campaign in a similar way. I believe that he lacked sufficient appeal to those beyond the stereotypical stances of the NDP without anything 'new'. AND, even in rallies, he had optional signs that merely said, "Stop Harper", to appeal to the non-committed and certain stance AGAINST Harper. Trudeau won by default of his optimism. Also, the campaign 'against' him by the Conservatives was appearing to present themselves as LIKING Trudeau, but merely thinking of him as too young, with a "maybe" he's reasonable. So if any party lacked wedging here, it was the Conservatives. Mulcaire and Harper both had extreme antipathy towards each other in fear of one or the other to take power without noticing a concern for the Liberal Party.

Our Liberal Party often wins by merely being rather 'fuzzy' in position. They somewhat appear to appeal to the 'conservative' ideals AND 'liberal left' ones (NDP-liberal, that is), and so win by accident.

The Conservatives and Liberals here are the only viable parties likely to succeed because even within the supposed "social democratic" ideals of the NDP, they have evolved to be more representative of Multiple conservative groups that merely associate with social democratic ideals for the fact they represent the minority but plural interests of the same kind of conservative thinking of the particular major supporters. It makes it hard for the disenfranchised and NON-plural individuals who actually support the sincere "social democratic" ideals because our system treats culture as the defining factors of differences and NOT the actual economic classes as significant. This is my own problem with the NDP. They'd appeal to many others too, but the way they clearly support distinct non-economic groups in sync with the others except for which particular groups they favor, they come across as equally 'conservative'.

To resolve, if it could be done, the left-wing ideology here must abandon favor to specific interests relating to supporting segregated interests in sync with the regular conservatives. Ironically, here in the West, the only party who at least gives lip-service to this in some part is the very Conservatives. Also, all parties argue for defending a "middle-class" with disrespect to the working poor and worse to the non-working poor who are unaffiliated with either Unions (above average-waged and working people) or to some strong minority groups often associated with religion, race, or ethnicity in opposing resentment against the unaffiliated. So it leaves the majority of even the 'poor', as a class, who also may happen to vote, unable to trust the loyalty of the NDP should they be empowered. All groups still penalize the non-affiliated but at least, even if in error, the Conservatives and Liberals at least BELIEVE that we all intrinsically differ only because of economic factors. They only tend to favor the poorer classes who are non-affiliated by default of the fact that much of them are only genetically akin to their own group affiliations. I am 'favored', for instance, by the more right-wing conservative politics being a white European male based on their own bias to favor them of their own in-groups.

None of the parties support the individual as the most significant minority though. Nor is the individual even considered a 'minority' as we are forcefully classified as belonging to some distinct and rightfully inherent group. Though we are 'free' to not participate in these particular distinct groups according to our race, ethnicity, or religion, our Constitution places these classifications with priority when making laws and thus discriminates against those in need who don't cooperatively accept their arrogant beliefs of a right to 'heritage'. If any party could represent this, it would be the NDP. But their own funding supports come from the dominant groups who favor segregated laws privileging race, ethnicity, and religion. So you only assure that the appeal to the NDP will either be from the Nationalists as groups who are disempowered and not the larger variety of people constituting that class who might support them. This IS why the NDP lost. And for those groups who ARE sincerely on the left, they too would still not find anything in the NDP that they couldn't get already from the Liberals, at minimum.

[August1991]

Scott, I have read your post several times (tl;dr, as the kids say, but I did...)

...

Our Liberal Party often wins by merely being rather 'fuzzy' in position. They somewhat appear to appeal to the 'conservative' ideals AND 'liberal left' ones (NDP-liberal, that is), and so win by accident.

....

Well, because of wedge politics, among 13 potential voters, Trudeau Jnr made one NDP voter switch and vote Liberal - and Trudeau Jnr also got one non-voter to vote Liberal, uh, anti-Harper.

====

So maybe this is Mulcair's failure: he didn't bring in the 1 voter in 13 who is disinterested, non-involved.

Trudeau Jnr, OTOH, can play wedge politics better.

Edited January 19, 2016 by August1991

[Big Guy]

Mulcair has stated that the minimal support under which he would remain leader is 50% +1.

http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/kelly-mcparland-mulcair-sets-the-ndp-leadership-bar-well-below-the-norm

The Conservatives will wait until May 27th for their leadership selection.

In 2012, Mulcair won the leadership with about 57% of the vote. It was considered a slim margin even then. If after leading your party through two elections you cannot get at least 70% support then I suggest that you will have great difficulty in running your caucus.

By the way - both parties will use a form of ranked ballots to choose a leader. Ranked ballots is the system that seems to be endorsed by the current Liberal government as a change for the FPTP federal election process.