Mader Blog

I feel like, over the past few weeks, I’ve found myself taking one lonely position after another defending the Harper Conservatives, to the point that Maderblog risks moving from a right wing blog to an affirmatively Conservative one – a move I have no intention of making, at least for the time being. I’ve often said that I’m an ideologue, rather than a partisan; and the truth is that I have no particular desire to become Stephen Harper’s defender-in-chief. So a word of explanation.
There are many reasons for people across the political spectrum to disagree with Stephen Harper. Indeed, there are an almost limitless number of ways for reasonable people to complete the sentence “I disagree with Stephen Harper because X.” My hobby, lately, has been to probe many of these declarations to figure out just what that X is, and then to evaluate the merits and weight of X as against any proposed alternative.
Often the X is political or ideological: “I disagree with Harper because he doesn’t seem to support significant direct economic stimulus, and I do;” “I disagree with Harper because he wants to eliminate public funding for political parties, and I don’t.” That’s great; that’s politics. But increasingly I find that–at least among the commentariat–the X is (for lack of a better term) emotional: “I disagree with Harper because he’s mean;” “I disagree with Harper because he’s a hypocrite.”
The problem with emotional disagreements is that they’re almost impossible to evaluate on objective grounds. My first post on the constitutional crisis explored this area: I took issue with criticism of Harper for being mean, pointing out that many a Liberal had exhibited the same characteristics–for better or for worse. Paul Wells suggested that the difference was that mean Liberals achieved Liberal ends, while Harper was failing to achieve Conservative ones; but while that’s fair enough, I doubt most media critics of Harper’s meanness wish him to be a more successful Conservative – they wish him to be out of government entirely.
[I recognize that many Conservatives are upset with Harper for precisely this reason, and I think it's a perfectly valid reason to be upset with him. I just don't think that the ranks of the professional commentariat contain very many such Conservatives.]
Often the emotional X is simply a front, however, for a more objective ideological or political X. For many, “Harper is mean” was a shorthand for “Harper is Conservative.” Again, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with disagreeing with Harper because he’s Conservative. But in the context of, for instance, a constitutional crisis, when the Prime Minister’s faults are being evaluated not merely for sport but as a ground on which to justify an unprecedented transfer of power, a simple ideological or political disagreement has less purchase. Put plainly, one might disagree with Harper’s approach to stimulus, but as he was recently returned to office it’s his prerogative to pursue that approach, and – I submit, though I don’t think it’s too controversial – a simple political or ideological disagreement is insufficient to justify a transfer of government power without an intervening election.
What I’ve been trying to do, over the past few weeks – and intermittently – is to expose the X in popular media criticisms of the Harper government. I’m more concerned with the media than with the opposition parties, because the opposition parties can be expected to assert political or ideological Xs, dressed up to a greater or lesser extent in emotional language. But the press is, or ought to be, expected to be more straightforward; at least, I expect the commentariat to strive for that sort of directness. If you disagree with Harper because you disagree with his policy positions, say so; that facilitates a policy discussion, and it allows a comparison between the opinions of the commentariat and the opinions of the nation (where polling data is available). And if you disagree with Harper because you just don’t like him, say so; that way readers can evaluate further commentary in light of an admitted dislike for the subject.
Ultimately the people will decide these issues – which is why I continue to believe that if the Government falls in January, the GG should call an election. And while I have my own policy preferences with regard to many of the recently-discussed Xs, I don’t think there’s any need to recite them ad nauseum here – you can guess what they are, and someone else (probably Andrew Coyne) has already put the point better than I ever could. When I speak up, it’s because I think that something in the national political discussion bears comment – and recently, what I think bears comment is what I perceive to be an increase in simple dislike for the Prime Minister that is having the effect of coloring quite a bit of contemporary political commentary.
I could, of course, be wrong.