Conservatives win longtime Liberal stronghold Toronto-St. Paul's in shock byelection result
Conservatives win longtime Liberal stronghold Toronto-St. Paul's in shock byelection result
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Hah, I don't care about Trudeau (and certainly don't want to sleep with him like some of the more vocal fans), and lose either way as an NDP supporter. The entitlement to other parties' votes is laughable. You're bothered by the vote splitting? Perhaps electoral reform would help with that (I would've even accepted the ranked choice system that the Liberals proposed back in 2015, but even that didn't materialize).
The NDP will only have a real shot at power if the Liberals crash and burn, similar to the provincial NDP (but fuck Andrea Horwath for wasting her party's chance).
As for dealing with a conservative PM, well, I'll be fine, but he's still going to drag the country backward on climate policy. I hope y'all are rich enough to handle the rising costs of climate change (which will continue to rise even if Poilievre axes the carbon tax in total denial)
It's not only about climate change though and it's not only about you being fine. People thought the same way you do and got Trump elected and now abortion is getting banned all over the USA, but hey, at least some progressives can say they didn't vote for Hillary out of principle?
You aren't comparing Poilievre to Trump are you? Despite my misgivings with Milhouse, he is a regular political opportunist (though like Doug Ford, that can still cause problems for people). Swinging to the opposite extreme and making him sound like the antichrist erodes any chance of honest discussion we have with more moderate fiscal conservatives (the social conservative crazies that want to ban abortion will live in their own world no matter what).
You have a fair point about people displaying their privilege when saying they can tolerate a lost election. I know others don't have that luxury, but I'm not saying ignore everything, or don't vote. The climate is a wedge issue that affects everybody world wide, regardless of their political affiliation (or lack of), which is why I emphasized it.
This discussion started because of a comment supporting strategic voting, and extrapolated consequences and value judgments from there. It's an issue with the electoral system that requires electoral reform.
He might not ban abortion, but he already said he's ready to use article 33 to bypass the supreme Court on prison terms for violent crimes and when he starts feeling pressure from the social conservatives in his party and he's facing the possibility that they'll jump ship, you can be sure social issues won't be a priority to him, even if it's just cutting funding here and there so he indirectly ends up closing abortion clinics or homeless shelters.
I don't disagree with that. Poilievre won't want to burn political capital on this issue and would much rather neglect these services, even if it's fiscally irresponsible to saddle future governments with the bill for cleaning these messes up. Yea, it is exhausting to watch important services degrade day by day.
But once again, this only underscores the need to establish electoral reform so that a plurality of 40% will never again grant the Conservatives a majority government with which they can sledgehammer our institutions.
And you won't get it with either party that actually can get elected but your life or the life of people in need will get a whole lot worse with one of those parties. If you don't care about that and live somewhere where the Conservatives can potentially get elected then go ahead and split the vote by voting NDP and I hope you sleep well at night knowing that some people are getting deported because of people who decided voting for their favorite party was more important than protecting other humans.
That is an absurd argument to make in a functional democracy, and I find it appalling you lack any self awareness of how entitled and cynical you sound. Why not direct this venom at the people of the riding who didn't vote, rather than the people who participated in democracy as intended? Why have venom at all?
If I was a swing voter, I would make sure any party whose supporters try to guilt trip me for exercising citizen's rights to vote (for whoever I want) is punished at the ballot box. That's not a winning strategy - that's being a sore loser.
If you can't accept the fact that we don't have a proportional system then the only problem here is you. FPTP requires that people vote strategically, it sucks, but that's what it is.
I'm just as mad at the people who don't vote at all, don't worry, but if you vote and only end up splitting the vote so your vote ends up counting as a vote for the person completely opposite to who you want in power instead of the compromise that actually has a chance to get elected then you're just as much part of the problem. Not realizing that means people around you (and potentially yourself) end up suffering. You can think it's me guilt tripping you all you want, if you take the time to think about it you already know it to be true.
I completely disagree with the idea that people who do not choose to display unfettered consequentialism are responsible for negative outcomes, especially when the numbers are so small that it's barely relevant. Your view of politics is so polarized and embittered that it alienates anybody who looks at the world with shades of grey. Believe whatever you want, but if your takeaway is that the Liberal party should blame everybody else but themselves for their loss, then you will be just as rudderless as the party leadership when they lose the next election.
"especially when the numbers are so small that it's barely relevant"
Small like all the people who voted for fake candidates as a form of protest that would have been enough to swing the vote in the Liberals' favor? "We're so angry that we let the person from the party that never supported any electoral reform take the seat instead of the party that tried to do something about it and failed, that will show them!"
There are consequences to your acts in life and no one can take the blame for those consequences but you.