"Backroom political advisors of all parties who think themselves so astute and informed are often, by the very nature of their craft, dangerously insular. They operate, as do many politicians, in a bubble of similarity and even nostalgia." ---

Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives are in a bit of a muddle these days. Along with their extremely close friends at the Toronto Sun, and various conservative talk radio hosts, they were convinced that a daily drip of revelations about apparent extremism within the New Democrats would cause the NDP to hemorrhage support. But it seems, in fact, to have made no difference at all, and support for Andrea Horwath has often increased after these various and numerous tabloid splashes.

When, for example, it was announced with unconcealed glee that one NDP candidate had a Hitler meme on a Facebook post, or that another had held an abusive anti-police placard at a demonstration a decade ago, or that a black woman standing in a central Toronto riding had insulted police chief Mark Saunders with a racist epithet for allegedly betraying his own people, nothing really happened.

The silence was, as they say, deafening.

The usual suspects were apoplectic, and roared both their incredulity, and their annoyance that other people didn’t share their anger, but the polls didn’t move, and political business went on as usual. What had worked for the right in the past wasn’t working any longer.

Many of these stories were creakingly old of course, and most of those responsible or involved made immediate apologies. Not, however, Jill Andrew who is running for the NDP in St. Paul’s in Toronto. She partially clarified her statement about the police chief, but took not a step backwards. Whatever one may think of her ideas and approach, this was clever politics. Outside of the conservative outrage club, it was a 24-hour story, and is now largely forgotten.

Horwath has been criticized for not being more critical of her candidates, and condemned by Tories and Liberals alike for not firing some of them. But that’s missing the point of all this. She didn’t jettison anybody because she didn’t see the need and – important this – didn’t believe it would help her or her party. She made apologies, defended her people, and knew that nobody would seriously believe that she and her party admire Hitler, or hate the police. She’s trading on her likeability, and the lack of it in her rightist opponent. She also remembers how Doug Ford’s dismissal of socially conservative radical Tanya Granic Allen didn’t seem to help the PCs in any way at all.

But there’s something else. What conservatives have failed to understand is that Ontario has changed rapidly and profoundly in the past 25 years, and there are countless people in our major cities who do indeed have major problems with the police, who do believe that Black Lives Matters play a vital role, and who do question what we used to consider self-evident. Backroom political advisors of all parties who think themselves so astute and informed are often, by the very nature of their craft, dangerously insular. They operate, as do many politicians, in a bubble of similarity and even nostalgia.

Also, some of the journalists who are writing these stories have little if any credibility outside of their increasingly small clan of followers. It’s a case of I-told-you-so reporting, comforting those who want to be comforted, who are already committed to Doug Ford, and would no more vote for the NDP than give up thinking that Don Cherry speaks for the “real Canada.”

We saw something very similar in Britain with Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who is far to the left of the NDP, and some of whose candidates have made outrageous comments. Corbyn and his party and people were attacked by Britain’s Daily Mail, which is much more influential than the Toronto Sun, on a daily basis. Other daily tabloids joined in, and even serious outlets such as the BBC and Times asked challenging questions about the new Labour Party. Yet in the last election Jeremy Corbyn almost became Prime Minister, and may well do so in the future. Just a few years ago this would not have been possible. Ontario, and even greater Canada, is very similar.

So in a way the right in Ontario has become a victim of its own conservatism. Doug Ford may win the election next week, but it will be close, and whatever happens we have seen the emergence of a modern divide, and a political reality that requires understanding rather than anachronistic platitudes. As the novelist L.P. Hartley said, “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”

Better get used to it.

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