Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold

  


My friends, there's no denying the impact of the past couple of days. The way it stands now, we're going to have to live with a Harper majority for the next four or five years.

And while it's nice to fantasize about the Conservatives doing themselves in by getting too comfortable, or too arrogant, or taking the muzzles off their backbench whackjobs and throwing some red meat to their so-con base, we can't count on that. How we organize to fight this is going to be the subject of several blog posts, and perhaps the strategic focus behind worthwhile Canadian initiatives such as the one currently being organized over at Sixth Estate. Check it out when you can.

But getting organized is also going to mean facing some uncomfortable truths: about the polarization of Canadian politics, about the role of the media, and about the role of the Liberal Party.

Montreal Simon says it even better

Just to reinforce my point about the partisan backbiting.

I note this morning that Simon's got an excellent post addressing some of the same things, but he says it better than I can.  Go and read it now.

He manages, in passing, to highlight a particularly egregious display of Blame Throwing. Keep it up folks. You're just giving the Cons more wood.

While you're at it, check out this piece from Boris over at the Beaver.

Related posts:

• Again: Stop it, all of you. We need to take the long view
• Wow. Just ... wow.
• When Liberals and New Democrats snipe at each other, who wins?
• To my dear Liberal and NDP friends ...

Again: Stop it, all of you. We need to take the long view

(I've been looking for the Blame Thrower scene from Mystery Men, but crapped out. Anyone finds it, email me.)

Can we please, please, stop the post-election fingerpointing? Haven't we given the Dark Side enough to chortle over? With every bitter blog post, every recriminating tweet, they're just signalling the waiter for  another round and exchanging high fives.

Harper as Nixon?

I've seen the comparison floating around out there on the intertoobz for some time now.

For those not familiar with the era in question, Rick Perlstein's seminal book Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America sets out how Republican Richard Milhous Nixon and his brain trust used divisiveness, demonization and dog whistles to capture the White House in 1968. The resulting tribalisms, resentments and cleavages in the American body politic are still resonating today.

Say hello to the new guy

Base, common, unpopular.

Makes thwap look polite and genteel.

The Beijing Model? The Harper Model? Does it matter what we call it?

Capitalism and full-speed-ahead economic growth, fuck the environment and anyone who's not a well-connected insider, and if you have any dissenting thoughts or ideas about any of this, probably best to keep them to yourselves.

The lineup at the polling station this morning

All the way around the gym at the local high school, out the door and round the corner.

Had to wait half an hour to vote. Maybe some of the people there got robo-calls directing them to the wrong place or something.

Tell us again how nobody wanted this election, Steve?

Don't go 'way mad, buddy. Just go away.



Related posts:

• The night before the election: what we can expect
• Election, final week: All right, all right. A small measure of hope
• Poll results, wishful thinking and realism