Conservatives Are Gaslighting Themselves

On The Big Mistake Conservatives Are Making

One of my favourite forms of dumb arguments is taking very obviously self-interested parties to an argument as objective analysts. When it comes to sports, we tend to see through the arguments - Blake Wheeler’s been pinch hitting on the NHL playoff coverage this week, and I don’t think anyone is actually surprised that the long time former Winnipeg Jet is biased towards his guys. When people try to use Adrian Newey - famous F1 car designer/engineering genius - saying that Red Bull was the fastest car in 2021, the only correct response is “of course he’d say that”, because it’s in his literal self interest to say that. If he admitted that he delivered a suboptimal car that Max Verstappen dragged to a title, he looks a lot worse! Obviously he’s going to say his car was fastest!

Much of the time, when a narrative gets spread around, it’s because it’s useful for someone to get that narrative out there. When it’s well connected beat writers suddenly dumping the notebook of all their inside sourcing right before a player leaves town (see: Marner, Mitch), we know what it is. But in politics, that narrativizing still happens, but it goes unchallenged and unchecked much more. But that doesn’t make these narratives true.

Let’s take a classic of the vibes-only, data free narrative genre - that the combo of Kamala Harris not doing Joe Rogan and Trump doing his big media tour of the “Manosphere” - Rogan, Theo Von, a bunch of others I’ve never heard of - made the difference in the election. In a close election, plenty of things are theoretically responsible, but the idea that podcasts gained Trump and cost Kamala 2% on margin - the tipping point state margin - is entirely unproven. Maybe it is! But we don’t know that, and yet there’s all of this talk about the next Democratic Presidential Primary being in part about being a test of who can appeal in new media spaces. Based on what?

It’s in Trump’s campaign people to take the victory lap for this, and it’s in the interest of Joe Rogan to believe that he wields this power, but why do some Democrats believe it? Because it’s a nice, easy answer that blames campaign mechanics for the loss, absolves their values from responsibility, and essentially allows people to believe a slightly repackaged version of their losing effort will be enough. If Kamala lost because she didn’t go on Rogan, the answer is to run on the same ideas and just run a candidate that can do Rogan, Von, et al. This way, it’s not the ideas that failed, just the strategy and tactics. (This is also the cold comfort that people who say America would never elect a Black Women and therefore Kamala was screwed from the start are seeking.)

So why does it feel the Conservatives up here are engaging in the same nonsense?

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The Conservatives seem to be engaging in two different forms of this nonsense, one that blames it all on Jenni Byrne for running a bad campaign and one that claims that the second Trump started the 51st State shit the Conservatives were fucked. Both are wrong in their totality - obviously Byrne ran a bad campaign, and obviously Trump did Poilievre a lot of damage - but they ignore the real problems the Conservatives had elsewhere. It ignores that the Conservative policy offer was incredibly weak sauce, it ignores that the Conservatives nominated a leader who doesn’t play well with women, and that ignores the fact the Liberals ran a bad government especially post-COVID and that a recovery in Liberal competence - or even just the Liberals going from full moron to half moron - could cause their coalition to come undone.

By a lot of metrics the Conservatives did well, but I think the reliance on Trump and Byrne as the reasons for failure is a choice, and let’s be real a bad one. It’s one that absolves the Conservatives of any culpability for potentially having a message that didn’t work beyond Liberal Bad. It absolves the Conservatives of criticism for their disdain for serious economic policy. It absolves them of recrimination for offering tax cuts to every single problem like they’re fucking Oprah giving out cars.

In the last Parliament, I had a recurring line that I inevitably drove loyal readers to insanity with, pointing out that the NDP were two parties stuck together by first past the post. In the same vein, it seems like the recurring line of this Parliament is going to be that the Liberals have a shitton of low hanging fruit to go get next time around. Yes, the Trump tailwind won’t be as strong, and yes, Carney won’t be as shiny and new, but the Trudeau legacy won’t hurt as badly. We’ve seen 15% declines in house prices since peak and immigration cuts are seeing rent declines of 5% or more across almost every major Ontario municipality.

There are huge amounts of problems in the criminal justice system, from cases getting tossed out on delays to jail overcrowding and a delays in judicial appointments. Those are all issues that aren’t ideological in scope. If the government can work with provinces to increase legal aid budgets, improve processing speeds, and stop letting cases get tossed for incompetence we’ll have less criminals on the streets even without any undoing of bail reform. Fix some of the stupidest excesses of catch and release and you’ve gone a decent way towards neutralizing a huge negative.

If I were a member of the Conservative consultant class I’d be shitting bricks right now. The Trudeau government did so much shit wrong and Carney still came something like 120 votes from majority government. Yes, Byrne ran a bad campaign, and yes, Trump helped. But the Conservatives are genuinely gaslighting themselves that all they have to do next time is pray that Donald Trump shuts the fuck up and that Carney’s not as popular and they’ll be fine. They won’t.

As a Liberal, I’m thrilled. I want the CPC to fuck up. I want them to fall for the One Quick Trick approach to politics, blaming all their ills on campaign tactics and Trump. It’ll stop them from fixing their actual problems, and make the Liberals’ job of winning the next election significantly easier than it could otherwise be.

(As we ramp up coverage of the Carney era, national unity threats in Alberta and Quebec, and attempt to use whatever influence I have to influence this new government, consider a paid subscription. All work will remain free but a paid subscription is a way to support my work and enable me to continue to do what I love.)