The Mississauga Byelection

 

Look! The very heavens are turning Liberal red!

The results of the recent byelection in Mississauga were disappointing for all of us who think Justin Trudeau must go. The Liberals actually increased their share of the vote, winning an absolute majority.

The most striking thing was the collapse of the NDP vote. It has halved since the last election. This explains the Liberal success: votes moving from the NDP.

Nationwide, according to the conventional wisdom, this is bad news for the Conservatives. They count on the Liberals and the NDP splitting the vote on the left to allow them to come up the middle, the Conservative vote traditionally stalling  in the thirties.

It is worse news, of course, for the NDP. It makes them unlikely to want to force an election any time soon.

But it also suggests a lack of vitality on the left. The NDP has always been a ginger group, pushing the discussion toward the left. They were a place to park a protest vote, and feel virtuous. Every election was a “moral victory.” And their presence has supported the Liberals as the safe middle ground.

Their collapse, and the increasing inability to distinguish themselves and their platform from the Liberals, suggests that the left has lost the moral high ground. Voting left is no longer about principle. It is perhaps about fear of change, perhaps about power and self-interest for your client group. There are no more moral victories. That is a bad portent over the longer term. Moral authority is important. Ask Dr. Martin Luther King. Ask Gandhi. Ask O’Connell.

The NDP has abandoned the working class. The unions are moving to the Conservatives. Now you only vote NDP, or Liberal, to maintain the status quo. The attack on conventional sexual morality, the adamant support for abortion, the seeming grooming of children in the schools, the encouragement of racial division, the lies and suppressions during the Covid crisis, have begun to trouble the average conscience. 

Folks are apparently not ready to make the big move yet, from left to right. They still fear the unknown, and the neighbours they have always been told are racists and Nazis. But this swelling of the Liberal ranks looks like a bubble about to pop. 

Facing uncertainty, confused, people will huddle towards the known and familiar while they try to decide what to do.