This is a short reply to Ken Boessenkool’s reply to Stewart Prest’s comments on Conservative party politics in Canada. Follow the link to The Line article to read the original articles.
"Democratic reform is for losers"?
It's probably useful to remember democracy is not the norm in human history. Thus without democratic reform there is no democracy. So if you are living in a democracy, you are a loser, according to the author.
If electoral minorities controlling the political life of majorities is a feature not a bug, then presumably authoritarianism is just a feature-filled version of this form of 'democracy'.
We're offered Harper's vision of a modern principled conservatism formed from fusing Burkean conservatism (social) and classical liberalism (economic).
But even more important, Harper offered a strategy for political success in a first-past-the-post system based upon expediency. Coalitions are supposed to unify various traditions, be incremental not radical, and open to changing their membership composition. The author suggests expediency trumps purity in the pursuit of electoral success.
Begging the question how far can one stray from traditional principles in the pursuit of electoral success and still be an A, a B or a C? And does it even matter, as long as your gang wins?
The writer suggests that shifting positions on carbon pricing, pandemic vaccine passports or flirting with working-class voters by flip-flopping on minimum wage, are all indications of such practical coalition-building expediency.
However, if building successful coalitions is simply the pursuit of mixing and matching policies until one finds a winning combination, why have principles at all, if they turn out to be just complicating affectations? And is the charge of expediency not the charge that purists on the left and right are always making against those unprincipled Libs?
Not at all we're told.
"Conservatives are conservatives because, unlike Liberals, they want to get elected to do things, not to be things. They are like New Democrats in this way."
"Doing" versus "being"? Have to admit, haven't a clue what that's about. Apparently there's no connection between doing stuff and being the gang doing the stuff. I suspect that's a bit of precious inside-baseball teeter-talkin after a long night of heavy, partisan bottle-bending. Best to save the insider baseball stuff for the insiders club of smiley bobble heads.
But maybe the Cons will buy a lot of ads to explain this coalition-building, sure-fire, election-winning distinction, doing vs being, to voters in the next feature-rich, no bugs aboard, electoral struggle between A, B and C.
"Vote for us, not because you want to BE a Conservative, but because you want to DO a Conservative!" Hmmm, then again, who knows when you say it out loud like that, just might work, building a fertile coalition of As and Bs and Cs?