Cultists And Converts

How To Win In Politics And Life

One of the revealing things about the 2019 Canadian election was the way that Justin Trudeau doing Blackface didn't matter. It just didn't matter, at all. But, specifically, there was absolutely no measurable impact of the photographs with ethnic minority voters, which probably should have inspired a whole lot of conversation that never came.

It's something that surprised me at the time, and thinking about the Blackface incident in the light of the recently revealed (or, re-revealed) allegations of racist behaviour committed by John Fetterman, I'm reminded that the people who hated Trudeau's Blackface were a whole lot of white people. Some were performative conservatives who wanted to bash the Prime Minister, and some were like me, who thought it was disgraceful (for the record, I voted Green and will vote NDP next time). But, what's interesting about this is the fact that it wasn't broadly speaking ethnic minorities who were mad.

Look at the way the Liberals extended their margins across Brampton and Mississauga and you'll see the fact that non-white voters did not care. There is not a seat even remotely marginal in Brampton now, and even in Mississauga, there's one seat on a 10% margin, and not another one until 17%. This is the part of Canada where you'd expect the biggest Blackface effect if it hurt Trudeau with ethnic minorities. There was none. And, before someone comes at me with, "but Trudeau sucked in BC," those voters were heavily Chinese, and more concerned with Canada-China relations than Blackface, so spare me. It still surprised me, at least until last night.

And then I realized that it makes complete sense.

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If the gay rights movement had not been willing - if not eager - to accept the converts to their cause, I would probably not be legally allowed to get married when the time comes. It took the views of a whole lot of people to go from thinking that marriage was a thing for straight people to accepting that it is for everyone. Amongst the people who have changed their minds on the issue? My mother, who once told me that she used to think that gay marriage was an absurd idea, years ago. She never specified what kind of timeline she meant - Canada legalized gay marriage federally in 2005, so there is a lot of runway here - but she told me one time in a broader discussion of my homosexuality.

Was it fun to hear? Of course not, and it obviously hurts to think that someone who supported left wing parties for decades at one time thought that it was absurd. But it also illuminated the point to me well. We cannot shame those who have gotten to the right answer in a time frame we wish would have been faster for taking too long to get there, because at that point, you discourage further evolution.

There's a broader point somewhere in all the Cancel Culture bullshit discourse we're seeing these days, I'm sure, but I just think it says something that the impulse of those affected is not always to reach for conclusions. Put simply, I don't have the luxury of dismissing anyone who used to hold gauche or unacceptable views about my sexuality, or people who used language that we would all recognize is abhorrent. If I did that, my circle would be startlingly small - and I'd be out the friendship and love of people I really care about.

Purity is a luxury in politics and life. We have all made errors, said things badly, done things we regret. You're lying if you think you haven't. But, thinking about why I'm more willing to forgive past indiscretions about sexuality than Blackface, well, because one of those feels obviously bad, and I'm just conditioned to think that we have to accept some amount of converts when it comes to homosexuality. And, I suspect that the Black voters who voted for Joe Biden in South Carolina despite some flaws - the 94 Crime Bill, namely - would appreciate the distinctions I'm drawing here.

Those who frequently find themselves dismissing incrementalism and insufficient progress as doing nothing are, traditionally, white leftists. It probably says something that Medhi Hasan is one of Biden's most vocal critics from the left, but he has been mostly okay with the Biden Administration so far, if not outright positive (again, so far!). Purity tests may feel good, and red lines might seem like a good solution to problems that exist, but they're not. Politics is the act of gaining converts, not turning off those who worry that they haven't had the "right" answers for long enough. Hell, AOC understands this fact better than anyone else, which is why she fights so damn hard for Democrats, even when she gets hate from supposed ideological allies for being insufficiently committed to revolution.

You can want a revolution all you want, but the only way you win the battle for hearts and minds is by allowing people the space to get from where they were to where you want them to be. My right to marry is a testament to the power of persuasion and conversion, and we ought to do everything to allow people to be welcomed to the fact they now believe the right thing, instead of punishing them for taking too long to get there.