The Three Ring Circus
When tonight’s Alberta leader’s debate ended, the feed cut out and the station I was watching switched to an ad for the circus. Given the past 48 hours in Alberta politics, it was on point.
Here’s what struck me about the debate:
In the past 24 hours, Danielle Smith has been found in violation of the Conflict of Interest Act and has had to deal with the fallout from revelations about atrocious statements from several of her candidates, announcing that one of them will not sit in a UCP caucus, if elected. Under those circumstances, many politicians would be rattled. Not Danielle Smith. She walked into the debate exuding self-confidence, and delivered her message smoothly and effectively. It’s hard not to be impressed.
That self-confidence is Smith’s superpower. She is so sure of her own rightness that she can say things that are simply untrue, or bear only passing reference to the truth, with such conviction that someone who didn’t know otherwise would be easily convinced. (Hello, low-information voters!) She appears to believe that the only thing in today’s report from the ethics commissioner is the bit that says that there’s no evidence of emails. She has conveniently deleted the part that talks about how her actions violate norms and are a threat to democracy. Having this level of self-confidence can be a tremendous asset to a politician. At least for a while.
Rachel Notley has sufficient self-awareness to understand that she’s playing a part. She doesn’t belong in a blue suit. She knows climate change is real, and that the decisions she made when she was premier were necessary and beneficial to the province in the long term, but she couldn’t allow herself to defend them. Her only vigorous defense of her record was when she noted that she got a pipeline built. Notley was smoothest and most credible when she spoke about healthcare and education.
That said, Notley did manage to land a few zingers. Her comments about ‘do you really want to talk about your candidates’ landed, as did some about Smith’s past remarks.
Smith has managed, in the campaign and in the debate, to portray Notley as the incumbent, having to defend her record. This leaves Smith as the plucky challenger, and the UCP’s highly uneven record of performance over the past four years somehow disappears.
Who ‘won’ the debate? No clue. Smith gets points for smoother delivery. The winner - if there is one - is the leader who managed to win over more undecided voters. I really struggle to see the debate through those voters’ eyes, if they were even watching.
I normally loathe watching leaders’ debates. They are long, tedious and chaotic. This was short, snappy and fast (almost too fast at times). Debate planners, take note!
Smith as a politician is was very good at deflecting anything to do with her ethics. She has had lots of practice, hasn't she? She simply changes the subject, and doesn't ever answer the question asked about her ethics. Sadly the mediators never pushed her to answer the actual question asked.
Imagine what it's been like for Rachel all these years across the aisle from these people, this "United Clown Posse." The circus analogy is spot on, except none of this is remotely funny or entertaining, it's actually deeply distressing when this is such a desperately important election. That's often said but when one side doesn't even bloody well "believe" climate change is "real," and although our side obviously DOES, AND even when it's currently manifesting here and now in Alberduh, it's STILL somehow politically risky to even bring it UP?? Pfffftttttt.... (What if she HAD led with it? That would be the true leadership we're all longing for, and dying for.)
Smith of course knew the risk so goaded Rachel repeatedly with it like she was DARING her to acknowledge the elephant in the room, castigating her for the carbon tax like it was literally right out of left field. "There's a special place in hell" expression comes to mind here, or the "banality of evil."
But conservatives like Smith can just keep blundering ahead LIKE elephants in a corn field by simply avoiding the drag of context at all times, including relevance or basic decorum. Hence the "deteriorating discourse" of politics for which culpability is not rightly attributed nearly often enough by the media, who really should bring it up CONSTANTLY, speaking of relevance. Bothsidesism should have disappeared long ago, but clearly people really just don't know what to do with the truly evil OR the unprecedented. The default response of a spluttering deer in the headlights is a variation of what Rachel did last night with that punishing 45 seconds. And truly, WHICH outrage do you focus on in a barrage? And how exactly do you nail down a pile of shit anyway? This was openly stated by the infamous Steve Bannon who, when asked how to handle the media said "flood that zone with bullshit." The added entertainment/novelty factor of delivering it with such bold aplomb and a sneering smirk is also understated. (Neil Postman's book, "Amusing Ourselves to Death" comes to mind.)
And interestingly, another novel aspect of the phenomenon that is the current right wing is that all this rudeness, bald-faced lying and generally delinquent behaviour is weirdly underpinned by religion for gawd's sake....!?
The earplug incident in the legislature early on said it all, the glaring misogyny of the bullying, perpetual bad boy cons (those little boys who have grown into smaller men) and their devoted cheerleaders. This party is so fractured they could barely agree on installing the usual placeholder woman as leader until we get our shit together kind of thing, but she's a convenient puppet for "Take Back Alberta" who have taken over the UCP. A man named David Parker is the actual master "mind," purely derivative though his ideas obviously are.
Meanwhile, the depressing number of low-information voters may well take the rest of us down.