Harper’s incrementalism (an introduction)

Kate and I got a lot of wedding work done today. We’re a little over two months away from the big day, and we decided to celebrate with a movie and a little wine. But as often happens between two progressive people – or two progressively tipsy people, at least – we shortly got to talking about the politics of the day. In this case, it was all about how awesome it is that Proposition 8 was absolutely shut down today by the California Supreme Court.

Now, that would have been a great time in and of itself, if it didn’t inevitably lead us down a road toward shouting “I know, right?” about Stephen Harper and David Cameron and all the other people in the world who, in spite of today’s good news, still seem to have way too much power to steer the world in a completely assheaded direction.

Obviously, some people are never satisfied. And since I’m apparently one of those people, here are a couple of quick and general thoughts on the Harper situation – with more to come if and when we ever finish working on this wedding.

Now, the first is less of a thought and more of a buzzword. The first time I heard the term “incrementalism” was during an interview on Take 5 with Marci McDonald, the author of The Armageddon Factor. In a nutshell, McDonald’s argument was that the Harper government’s success so far in moving the country further and further to the right has been due to taking small, almost imperceptible steps.

McDonald wasn’t the first to make this argument, and our recent political history bears it out. Whenever Harper’s Conservatives get a little too bold or ambitious, they inevitably wind up pissing off everyday Canadians – including many of their own party members, but more on that later. It’s the little measures, passed under the radar with little debate or scrutiny, that drag us all slowly but unmistakably closer toward the Canada they want to create.

Again, we’ll get to that in greater detail in a bit. The book’s on my desk and waiting to be read, I promise. For now, I’d just like to suggest – and listen up, because I might be on the verge of a good point here – that if we paid more attention to the government, and made more of a fuss when they tried to get away with doing something we don’t like, then they might actually get away with doing less of that stuff. Laugh all you want, but that seems to be the way things currently work in this country.

The second point’s a bit of an extension of the first. Have you noticed that whenever Harper does something that ends up being unpopular, the first thing he does is tell the press that now is not the time for an election? It’s practically his way of admitting that his administration’s just done something to piss off the voters.

If you ever hear him say this, and I’m sure you will again, do your country a favour by getting on the web, identifying the blunder in question, and sharing it with as many of your fellow voters as possible. Get that thing out in the open, whatever it is, for the good of the nation!

But beyond that, I’ve got an even better idea. Well, it’s less of an idea and more of a top secret plan. In fact, I normally wouldn’t even want to mention it on a forum as public as a blog, but I figure we’re safe as long as the Harper government continues to insist on pretending that Toronto and the people who live here don’t exist.

What if from now on, regardless of whatever terrible measures the Harper government should happen to put on the table, we all agreed to pretend we think they’re doing a great job? What if we all got together and decided to give them a constant thumbs up, lull them into a false sense of security, and trick them into calling an election in the hope of finally winning a majority?

I mean, come on. Don’t pretend you wouldn’t tell your grandchildren about the day we banded together as a nation and said “No, dude, we were just messing with you. Yeah, no, the whole time. Anyway, get the hell out of here.”

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