The Green Wave

Take the odds.

Paul Manly has won Nanaimo-Ladysmith, a former NDP stronghold, for the Greens. And soon after the Greens rose from nothing to official opposition in PEI.

I think this bears out my thesis that what Canadian voters crave now, more than this or that ideology or policy, is authenticity. I suspect that the voters never cared that much about ideology, or about specific policies; that was more the motivation of the activists.

But the politicos still do not get it. Everyone is saying that Manly’s win now shows how concerned Canadians really are about the environment.

Er, no.

Most voters probably always cared more about honesty. The difference is, with social media, it has become much harder to lie without being exposed.

Trudeau and the Liberals, traditionally straddling the centre and tacking and trimming in response to every poll, are probably doomed by this.

But the NDP are perhaps even more spectacularly blowing it. They were the obvious more honest alternative for dissident Liberals. But they have been, under Mulcair and Singh, trying to grab the centre. Exactly the wrong move. This leaves the Greens to take up the spoils left lying in the field. Elizabeth May may be certifiably nuts with her conspiracy theories, but at least she is honestly nuts. And so the Dippers came third in what had been a safe NDP riding.

There is another reason why the politicians should give up their cynical games and try being principled. Following the opinion polls works less well than it once did, because polling itself has become less reliable. People are no longer answering the poll questions.

Based on this metric, the quest for sincerity of any sort, we can probably expect a surge in the Green vote next federal election in Canada. Sincerity is what they have to sell.

In the US, the rise, then fall, of Beto O’Rourke was based, I think, on this craving for authenticity. And now the rise and fall of Pete Buttigieg. Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren have already failed this test, without even first rising. They did not have the advantage of oreiginally being unknown. Biden is not going to last by this standard; he only sounds superficially like a guy who speaks his mind. He speaks without thinking; this is not quite the same thing. The long tail will bludgeon him. Sanders is probably now most likely to win the nomination; but the dark horse I think most able to rise and stick, on these sincerity sweeps, is Tulsi Gabbard.

Precisely because she does not toe the party line. The very reason the party activists hate her.