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Losing is the new winning
1.6k Plays1 year ago
After a long hiatus due to moving offices the Progress Report pod is back. Jeremy Appel joins host Duncan Kinney to sift through the wreckage of the Alberta election. They discuss the Alberta NDP's spin on their catastrophic loss as well as what is to be done about the coming UCP cruelty.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:12
Speaker
Friends and enemies, welcome to the Progress Report. I am your host Duncan Kinney. Recording today here in Amiskwetchiwaski-gun, otherwise known as Edmonton, Alberta, here in Treaty 6 territories on the banks of the mighty Kasiskisawana Sipi, or the North Saskatchewan River. Joining us today is
00:00:28
Speaker
An unironic friend of the show, Jeremy Appell. Jeremy is a freelance writer and journalist. He is the owner and operator of the Orchard Substack. And he's also the man single-handedly responsible for the Alberta NDP's loss in the election that just happened. Jeremy,
Humorous Critique of Alberta Politics
00:00:44
Speaker
how are you feeling after ensuring another four years of UCP hegemony in Alberta?
00:00:50
Speaker
Great I you know I got some rubles in the mail today from my boss Vlad and you know I It's too bad that It wasn't a greater victory for the party that I clearly wanted to win the UCP, you know, it was a bit tight we lost some seats in Calgary, but Yeah, you know I did the job and I got paid so
00:01:16
Speaker
So,
Analysis of Alberta NDP's Campaign Strategy
00:01:17
Speaker
we're joking here, but we hate the UCP. We're very sad that they lost. At least, I'm very sad that they lost. I'm very sad that the NDP lost and that the UCP won. I think four years of Daniel Smith is going to be really bad.
00:01:34
Speaker
Yeah, there you go. But you and I have not been making any friends with the higher-ups in the Alberta NDP firmament, the elite, if you will, since the election result. I think you and I have come at this in different ways. You were very openly critical of the Alberta NDP's campaign.
00:01:57
Speaker
and their approach off the hop, you wrote a piece in the breach that we'll link to in the show notes that kind of laid out your criticism of the Alberta NDP's kind of timid and moderate approach to trying to defeat Daniel Smith. What's the Cole's notes of that piece, if you can try and just summarize it for us real fast?
00:02:14
Speaker
Well, I would say the cold notes is that the NDP were trying to win over conservatives in the suburbs of Edmonton and Calgary. And as a result, the policies they were offering were very cautious, only marginally distinct from the UCPs, although I think they did offer a clearly less bad alternative.
00:02:42
Speaker
And that they – I mean, it was sort of an example of the Overton – I didn't say this explicitly in the piece, but I think this campaign was a clear example of the Overton window shifting rightwards.
00:02:59
Speaker
whereby the NDP did all these things when they were in power, and some of them were quite good. I mean, again, they reduced child poverty by half. You don't hear a peep about that on the campaign for some bizarre, I guess, conservatives in Calgary like child poverty, which, you know, may very well be true. They don't want to hear about it, Jeremy. They don't want to be reminded that good things can happen. The USP rolls it back, and then some, right? I mean, look at corporate taxes. They were 10% when the NDP came in power. They were 12% when they got out of power.
00:03:27
Speaker
can you roll them back to 8%?" And the NDP said, okay, well, we'll increase them to 11%. We're still going to have lower corporate taxes than Doug Ford's Ontario and Scott Moe's Saskatchewan, so don't you worry. And, you
NDP's Reaction to Loss and Rural Challenges
00:03:42
Speaker
know, now the USPs in power for another four years is going to do some real damage. And then the NDP, depending on what lessons they learn from this defeat, and I'm sure we'll get to that shortly,
00:03:56
Speaker
are going to offer even less of what they did when they were in power 2015 to 2019. You were very upfront about your criticism. I got to admit, I mostly held my tongue. I'm super burned out, and my output has definitely decreased over the past couple of months.
00:04:22
Speaker
One of those things, perhaps contributing to that, was the kind of campaign that the NDP run, but I wasn't going to expend my psychic energy to just slag these people with the hope that perhaps maybe, somehow, their ideas would work, that their plan would work. Their plan didn't work. It was a conclusive loss.
00:04:41
Speaker
to an extremely beatable candidate in Daniel Smith. Perhaps the most galling, the part that snapped me out of my reverie and the part that was like, okay, we have to talk about this now, is me seeing a number of NDP higher-ups jumping onto Twitter.com to say that their catastrophic loss
00:05:01
Speaker
to one of the most beatable conservative candidates, one of the most beatable conservative parties ever, wasn't so bad actually. No, it was actually good. I mean, did you see Notley's concession speech? I felt like- I couldn't do myself with that. I felt like I was in Bizarro world. I mean, the atmosphere at NDP headquarters was jubilant. And even you saw people like Blake Desjardins there just chanting Rachel.
00:05:24
Speaker
Why are you happy? We have another four years of Danielle Smith, and you want us to applaud you because you didn't lose as badly as you could have? Yeah, you didn't lose as badly as last time. Let's start off by going through this cavalcade of back padding with senior compsperson for the Alberta NDP campaign, Cheryl Oates.
00:05:46
Speaker
Quote, the NDP has much to be proud of today, winning the popular vote in Calgary and Hamilton, the tightest race in Alberta's history, determined by 1,300 votes in six seats, the most support the NDP has ever received in Alberta. Friends, that is incredible progress. Hashtag abledge. Jeremy, should the NDP be proud of coming in second? Well, yeah, I mean, losing is new winning. Everyone knows this. I mean, was the race even that close?
00:06:15
Speaker
Well, if you
Comparison of NDP and UCP Policies
00:06:16
Speaker
look at the popular vote, not just specifically to where the NDP did, but province-wide, in rural Alberta, which the NDP have just completely written off as a bunch of yokels who hate trans people,
00:06:32
Speaker
No, I mean, it was a significant defeat. And you do have to do a lot of mental gymnastics and playing around with numbers to pretend it was anything but that. And the race isn't even that close. I think it's worth taking a minute just to be like, look, you can construct a scenario where there's these six or seven races where the votes are close. And if they just flip them, it's like they lost the popular vote by eight and a half points.
00:07:01
Speaker
That is a conclusive loss by popular vote. And even if somehow, scarily, they had managed to eke out a legislative, a slim legislative majority by losing the popular vote by that much, do we really think that they would be able to meaningfully govern with that kind of mandate?
00:07:18
Speaker
No, I mean, they would be reaching across the aisle and working, trying their best to work collaboratively with the UCP. I have no doubt about that. Compared with the UCP now, who, because they lost every riding in Edmonton, you know, Danielle created this Losers Guild.
00:07:43
Speaker
The Council of the Defeated. Such a noble D&D-esque name. Give her advice on Edmonton issues, because obviously they very much have their fingers on the pulse. Next up, for the round of back-patting, we have another senior NDP operative, Garrett Spellacy. Before we get to his particular tweets, it should be pointed out that Garrett's profile picture is
00:08:08
Speaker
of him standing next to the portrait of Rachel Notley that hangs in the legislature from her time as premier. His tweet goes, it's a long tweet thread, but I just kind of pulled out these two here. We are in a position to rebuild a movement that can do what Democrats fall short of Canada-wide. Beat a united opponent. And I don't think they're that united. We not only achieve the second best result in history, our best, if you considered it, it was against a united opponent. We redrew the map. We did this by fighting for every inch of the field. Hold your heads high.
00:08:37
Speaker
I want to focus on that like, we not only achieved the second best result in history, our best if you considered it was against United opponent Jeremy, is this result here in 2023 better than the result in 2015 when they actually won?
00:08:50
Speaker
Well, I mean, they did get more votes, right? And I think we do need to acknowledge that. But at the same time, they won in 2015. They didn't this time. And if you look at how they won in 2015, yes, of course, they had a divided right.
00:09:12
Speaker
Notley didn't win by trying to appeal solely to conservatives in the suburbs. She was not trying to build the law heat era Progressive Conservative Party 2.0 in 2015. They ran a new Democrat campaign and people were like, okay, we'll give these folks a try. We'll see what happens. And then they backed off from much of it quite quickly. The triangulation started immediately.
00:09:39
Speaker
I do think we ought to acknowledge that the NDP from 2015 to 2019 did do some good things, much of which were immediately rolled back. All the good labor law stuff immediately repealed. That's the one thing that usually gets swept under when conservatives take over after social democrats is they immediately change all the labor laws that were changed and usually not changed enough.
00:10:07
Speaker
The other thing that I think is worth hiding up from this tweet is, we did this by fighting for every inch on the field. I don't think the NDP fought for every inch on the field. Well, they certainly didn't fight for rural Alberta, except for Banff Kin Naskis, and maybe Lester Slave Lake. No, they still lost by 2,500 votes in Lester Slave Lake. Yeah, but I know they were targeting it, so whatever that means. It's like you didn't. I don't know if it's the leader. I don't know if it's the party congenitally.
00:10:36
Speaker
They have been unable to break through in rural Alberta. Perhaps it's too big a problem to concentrate on all of rural Alberta. It's a big place. But you have to focus on somewhere. I felt like Lethbridge was maybe the place they were going to break through. They only got the one seat in Lethbridge, the Shannon Phillips seat, the other seat they did not take. I know that was very important for them. I was surprised Mioshiro didn't win that, actually.
00:10:58
Speaker
But once you get out of Lethbridge, I mean, it makes sense. In first-past-the-post systems, you need to focus on a geographic area and build out from there. So it makes sense to start in Lethbridge. But yeah, Lethbridge, Red Deer, they didn't do terribly well in Red Deer either. I didn't think they had a chance in Red Deer anyways. I know Dave Cornier was calling it riding the watch, and that came as a surprise to me. I'm not trying to slag Dave.
00:11:24
Speaker
I very much value his perspectives on these things, but that never struck me as a writing that was going to go orange. Finally, we have Rachel Notley herself with a tweet that just came out this morning. We're recording this Thursday morning.
00:11:43
Speaker
We are close to quintupling the size of the Alberta NDP Calgary caucus. Pending recounts. I look forward to what the future holds for this awesome group of leaders. I'm guessing she didn't say the pending recounts part. No, no, the pending recounts part. Oh, did she? That's amazing. It's in brackets. So inspirational.
00:12:03
Speaker
But it's like, yeah, like, okay, you went from three to 12 or 15 or whatever, three to 14, whatever they went to. I mean, that's good. You still lost. Like, you don't get to be proud of losing. Who gives a shit?
00:12:19
Speaker
Yeah, it means nothing. It literally means nothing. And the people who are saying that, oh, well, this is going to impact the decisions of the UCP cabinet are living in a fantasy. It's not.
Predictions and Critiques of UCP Policies
00:12:34
Speaker
It's not. Like literally, if the fact that the UCP lost every seat in Edmonton or the one seat they had in Edmonton, let Danielle Smith to create this loser council to give her advice.
00:12:49
Speaker
Right like that to me suggests that They're not they're not interested in reaching across the aisle. It's the NDP. It's a one-way street The NDP wants to reach across the aisle the UCP doesn't care. They want to you know, they're I mean, they're led by a movement, right? I mean take back Alberta Has a lot of sway in the party and they're in the process of taking over its its machinery to keep it that way and
00:13:18
Speaker
You know, these NDP supporters are saying, oh, we need to, you know, we're going to have influence. Like, no, you're not. No, you're not. Like, take back Alberta thinks you're like satanic pedophiles who are like murdering babies. Like, they don't give a shit what you think. In fact, they find like everything you stand for, to the extent you stand for anything at all repugnant. And this is why I think this back padding
00:13:47
Speaker
why it gets the reaction it gets from me. This is why it makes me so angry, because the consequences of losing here are monstrous. The four years that we have coming up under Daniel Smith are going to be bad. I think it's worth taking a minute to contemplating what the consequences might be. What do you expect to see a UCB government led by Daniel Smith to focus on, say over the next two years, the part of the mandate where
00:14:16
Speaker
they're going to try and get the shit done that they want to get done.
00:14:21
Speaker
Well, it looks pretty bleak. I mean, we're gonna have people use drugs forced into treatment against their will and then getting out of treatment and relapsing perhaps because that's often what occurs and dying. You know, overdose deaths are gonna increase. I mean, charter schools are going to expand greatly. I mean, Smith created this charter school hub and for the first time actually,
00:14:48
Speaker
increase charter school funding relative to public school funding. It's always been equal. They get extra. Yeah, now they're getting extra money. So that's going to, you know, education is going to be increasingly catered towards the wealthy. Post-secondary education is going to rely increasingly on tuition fees, which are now, you know, increases are capped.
00:15:16
Speaker
But without government funding to make up for that, I mean, the quality of education is going to suffer. I mean, health care, we're going to see more contracting out to private for-profit entities that aren't just not going to improve outcomes, but make them worse.
00:15:37
Speaker
And you could go on and on. Oil and gas companies are going to get rewarded if they clean up their messes that they're legally obligated to already.
00:15:58
Speaker
breaking the polluter prey principle and just handing out cash to oil and gas companies to clean up their properties that they already are obligated to clean up. I'm not a big rule, norms or institutions thing, but you open those floodgates and why is any oil and gas company ever going to clean up any one of their
00:16:19
Speaker
Old sites ever but it's also like Trudeau did that first But Yeah, and the NDP never offered an alternative to it. They said oh we need strength in the laws. Okay, like what?
00:16:39
Speaker
Why didn't you do it last time you were in power? And the point you brought up, too, about the... But they didn't talk about their last time in power, except when it came to getting the first pipeline to Tidewater built in years while the province is on fire. I mean, delusional is too mild of a word to describe what we're dealing with in the Alberta NDP.
00:17:05
Speaker
Yeah. The thing you brought up I also just want to take a second to highlight is this continued move towards forced treatment, the rounding up of unhoused people who use drugs, and essentially placing them in treatment. The Alberta government already facilitated a street sweeping operation. When they brought the sheriffs into Edmonton and Calgary, their explicit job was to
00:17:30
Speaker
those sheriffs manufactured an excuse to run people's IDs, they would run those IDs, anyone who had a warrant got shipped a remand. That is a campaign to make unhoused people just disappear from the streets in advance of an election. She was using police power to enforce political goals, and that is only going to continue. That is what these people are willing to do to win elections. And they're willing to go after
00:17:58
Speaker
Alberta's poorest, most marginalized people in order to achieve their political goals. As scary as fuck, they are the bad people. Daniel Smith believes a lot of crazy, wackity things, and she'll say almost anything to anyone, depending on what room she's in. But the people around her, the people at the senior-most levels
00:18:17
Speaker
are also really smart, and they're really calculating, and they will make sure that the bad stuff happens. I don't think we can depend on bumbling or incompetence with these people, because the people around Danielle Smith are very scary, and I don't like them, and they're gonna do bad things.
00:18:33
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And that's the whole thing with all these bizarre statements Smith has made over the years. She was just like, well, I was a radio host. Of course, I was trying to be provocative. But you can't make that excuse for Marshall Smith, say, right? He's a true believer that people need to be forced into recovery and that drug use needs to be stigmatized.
00:18:57
Speaker
And it just so happens that you're forcing people into recovery. More people in the recovery, you give more money to these private recovery clinics to fund this influx of patients.
00:19:17
Speaker
It's a windfall for them. O'Reilly. Not only is it a windfall, but people will die. There are scientific studies that show that some of the most dangerous portions of a person's life for someone who uses drugs are the next few days after they get out of treatment. That's because their tolerance is gone. It's because the drug supply has probably shifted over while they were away. If they use drugs once and they're not used to it, and they get the poison-batch drugs,
00:19:42
Speaker
They die. The NDP did not say a word about harm reduction on the campaign trail. I mean, they talked about how it's unconstitutional to force people in treatment, which is true. But, okay, well, Turner, what are you offering? I mean, you opened all these supervised consumption sites when you were in power. I get that a lot of them had a local backlash.
00:20:03
Speaker
No, they were terrified of talking about the issue. When the UCP proposed 100 more cops, the NDP proposed 150 cops. Right, partnered with social workers, which is fucking amazing. That is such a good example of this liberal response. NDP baby splitting, yeah.
00:20:23
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Debate on NDP's Political Strategy
00:20:24
Speaker
Like, okay, we're going to hire more cops, but they're going to be partnered with social workers. And it's like, okay, great. So you are integrating even more social workers into the carceral system. Like, you're not solving any...
00:20:41
Speaker
any problems. You know, and I suppose, you know, you talk to a guy like Tamitopa Oreola, who knows a lot more about these things than I do, and he says, well, it's a, you know, that's a positive step. It's better than just having 150 cops who aren't trained in these fields that are more compassionate. But, you know, at the end of the day, though, I mean, I think we're splaying hairs over the difference between the NDP and the UCP policy.
00:21:11
Speaker
Yeah, that's one of the points you make in your piece that I think you did a very good job of illustrating. But if you were to ask a different commentator, perhaps someone who goes by the name Maximum Fawcett, the lead columnist at the National Observer. What is a lead columnist? I've never heard that phrase before. Is he the only columnist they have? I don't know. Yeah, maybe he's the only full-time columnist they have. I know they published Jen Hassam recently.
00:21:38
Speaker
Yeah, but that's just like one-off op-ed stuff. Yeah, and I think Sandy Garicino writes to them frequently, but not like multiple times a week, so maybe that's what it is. But then just call him columnist. He's a columnist. He's a columnist for the National Observatory. Like you have to remind me that he's above me. He's a very serious, very serious journalist, a very serious thinker who's taken very serious by serious people.
00:21:59
Speaker
He's got a column that's worth ... We're not going to go full big shiny takes on this because it's really annoying and bad. Also, a lot of the points that we've talked about have been already raised by the NDP higher-ups. But the headline is, Rachel's NDP needs to finish the job.
00:22:16
Speaker
We will not be linking this to this in the show notes. Feel free to Google it if you really must subject yourself to it, but I'm just going to pull out a couple of excerpts because I think Max does, he's making the same points that like Garrett's Bellsy, Cheryl Oates, and Rachel Notley are making. Yeah, literally people who are paid by the NDP making, except he is not. Except not, and I'll just quote him here.
00:22:39
Speaker
There will be calls for a return to the NDP's more ideologically strident past, when catering to suburban Calgary voters was never much of a consideration. They'll argue a more authentically left-wing party, one that campaigns more aggressively on climate change and social justice would animate the young voters they need. That would be an even bigger mistake.
00:23:00
Speaker
You think that would be a mistake, Jeremy? Should they be triangulating more to a former PC voter, Calgary Suburban model voter? They got the second best from Trevor, so obviously they just need to keep doing ... No.
00:23:19
Speaker
Yeah, and Max never explains why that would be a mistake. It's just taken as a given. But I think he's also doing a bit of a red herring here because
00:23:33
Speaker
Like, you know, I can't speak for anyone else, but my view isn't that they should explicitly run as a socialist party that, you know, wants to bring all industry under public ownership, but there's a way to run as social democrats that isn't going to turn off people from the suburbs. The same people who are voting for Danielle Smith, who are voting for right-wing populism,
00:24:02
Speaker
And you know, you see this question everywhere, everywhere that right-wing populace are winning, which is everywhere in the democratic world, so-called. It's that...
00:24:18
Speaker
The response to this right-wing populism can't be this tepid incrementalism because right-wing populism acknowledges that something is fundamentally broken with the system and that there's anger about it and then it channels people's anger towards something else other than what the actual cause is. Now you can articulate that
00:24:40
Speaker
This populism from a left-wing perspective you can explain like reading passages of you know the 18th through mayor or something at Campaign rallies right like it's not like I think max is creating a false binary here right between No, the system is broken and you do need to acknowledge it because people are working more hours for less money And they're able to buy less shit and like that's not
00:25:06
Speaker
That's the reality like that's the simple truth is that like working-class people people who work for a living? Are getting fucked and you need to be able to acknowledge that and have an explanatory reason for why that why things are like that yeah, and they can't forward to live in in a home and the the the purportedly progressive party is hiring this this toad man and
00:25:27
Speaker
from Airbnb to run their campaign who they wouldn't even acknowledge was running their campaign. And he wouldn't acknowledge he was running their campaign until like a few hours before polls closed. And you mean to tell me that a party talking about introducing rent control wouldn't win over people?
00:25:49
Speaker
Who rent? Yeah, who rent, which is the majority of people. Ontario has rent control. Mike Harris didn't get rid of it. Doug Ford didn't get rid of it. And there's a reason for that. It's because people like it. It's popular because they don't want to have the risk of renovation hanging over their heads over the time. But if you read what Max has written about the housing crisis,
00:26:12
Speaker
It's that we're all to blame for it. There's no culprit here We all have a part to play and making housing more affordable. It's like no we don't yeah, I'm not the government Yeah, well yeah, and I don't own property the important point here is that the the NDP the upward NDP have created instead of embracing kind of like the explanatory power of
00:26:35
Speaker
mass politics and of social democratic norms to explain why things are bad and to actually do politics. Instead, they've created a model
Challenges Facing NDP Leadership and Strategy
00:26:44
Speaker
voter in their head of someone who pined for the days of Peter Lahid's PCs. They position themselves as the natural successors to the Peter Lahid era PCs.
00:26:57
Speaker
And the fact that they thought that they could win an election by marketing themselves like this would make Grant Notley turn over in his fucking grave. Grant Notley fucking hated the Lahid-era PCs. And when you as an ostensibly social democratic party are asking conservatives to lend you their vote, that is an inherently weak and self-defeating political— Yeah, lend us your vote. Don't give it to us. Just lend it to us.
00:27:24
Speaker
And so yeah, and they carded out Thomas Lukasic and Doug Griffith. They carded out a fucking a guy who was the Attorney General under Peter Lahid who whose last time in office was four years before I was fucking born.
00:27:38
Speaker
Yeah, and these are also the people they beat in 2015, and now they're saying, oh, we're actually just like them. We share the same goal, or at least the same entirely negative goal, which is stop Danielle Smith. And of course, the answer to this problem is they're going to
00:27:59
Speaker
Like, okay, we don't just want them to lend us their vote. We want them to be part of our coalition. And I think that's the direction Nautli and her clique are going to move towards, which is why I think people need to mobilize against Nautli within the party. The problem is she has this bizarre cult of personality, even though she's not particularly charismatic.
00:28:24
Speaker
that think she's great. I mean, you saw it on election night when you had even Blake Desjardins, who's supposed to be, and I think is one of the more progressive new Democrats federally, just so, so happy to bask in the glory of Rachel Notley losing again. And so when the Alberta NDP based their entire premise of their campaign on winning over an aero band,
00:28:46
Speaker
of people who either pine for the days of Peter Laheed, PC, politics, or are just young people very enthusiastic. Or they construct this model voter of a suburban Calgary family that is like, if we say the right things about oil and gas and corporate taxes, maybe they'll vote for us. No, Emma Jackson made this point on Twitter, and I very much agree with it, which is that
00:29:13
Speaker
And politics is not that complicated. At the end of the day, you have to energize and expand your base to win elections. And when you, as an ostensibly social democratic party, make your entire pitch appealing to people who hate you, or people who don't believe in you, or people who just like, I guess I'll vote for you because you're better than them, you are writing off a core part of your base. And while they still might vote for you, grudgingly,
00:29:37
Speaker
They're not going to be out there donating their time, their money, their sweat, because you are, again, ostensibly a social democratic party. You cannot win without the people behind you. You need to be able to do mass politics. Instead, they went for this tightly focused, highly controlled, small coterie of people responsible for actually doing anything of any note for their campaign.
00:30:00
Speaker
And, again, they lost. They lost badly, and they lost badly doing the same thing in 2023 that they did in 2019. But even more so. Well, I mean, they lost a little better, but they lose. Whether you lose by 10 or whether you lose by 20, I don't fucking care. But the thing is, there is a case to be made
00:30:20
Speaker
I think, you know, a lot of people whose views I respect disagree with me that you can win a moral victory without winning an electoral victory by moving the dial and inspiring people. And I mean, you know, Bernie Sanders is a perfect example of this, didn't win. But I think it's undeniable that he did push Biden left of Biden's comfort zone and did win some concessions. Again, not
00:30:50
Speaker
Ideal but but it's something that That pushed him changed mass consciousness You look at Jeremy Corbyn in 2017 them definitely not 2019 when he reduced the conservatives to a minority government Didn't win, but he did actually change something right like moral victories are possible moral victories are possible, but
00:31:16
Speaker
When your entire strategy is winning at all costs and just throwing your base under the bus, you can't claim a moral victory. And that's what the new Democrats are trying to spin this as. But there's no there's no more morality involved. I mean, do you remember when when when not Lee came out against the just transition in like January because Danielle Smith told her to
00:31:37
Speaker
And she was like, oh, of course. Yeah, fuck the just transition. Yeah, yeah. People don't like those two words together. Yeah, she was like, just, yeah, Max had another, you know, column. It's bad branding. Yeah. Yeah. Despite the fact that the reporting from his own publication suggested otherwise. But, um, well, and I, but, but so right, Rachel is just like, just, just abandon it, just get rid of it. And, and, and Michelle Bell Fontaine asked her,
00:32:03
Speaker
Well, like, do you think that this is going to turn off your base, who want a transition away from fossil fuels, who want to move people from oil and gas jobs to clean energy jobs? And Notley's response, and I'm really glad Michelle included this in her story, was maybe, I don't know, haven't really thought about it.
00:32:30
Speaker
Don't care. You reap what you sow. I'm glad you brought up Bernie, because he was always explicit in that he wanted to do mass politics. He was aware that, sure, maybe I win this nomination, maybe I become the president.
00:32:45
Speaker
But I can't take on corporate power in the United States without a mass of people who are willing to do shit. Rachel Notley here was like, okay, so say by some miracle she wins. There is absolutely no mandate. She hasn't built the power necessary to effectively challenge the people who really run Alberta. Alberta's oil and gas oligarchs, the business tyrants, the business council of Alberta. Those are the people who are really in charge of Alberta.
00:33:12
Speaker
Yes, madam premier. I wouldn't say I
Economic Strategies and Political Narratives
00:33:14
Speaker
would go that far, but like those are the people really in charge of Alberta It's gonna take more than just an electoral win to actually rest power away from those people you do actually have to do mass politics you have to build a movement of people who share your same values who are willing to get out in the streets for you and that hasn't been done and and so like again the elite at the top of the NDP ran the same campaign twice in a row and
00:33:36
Speaker
I fucking pray they don't run it the third time or that the people are out there who want to invest the time and effort necessary to do the change from within thing. I'm getting a little ahead of myself. We've got a little bit more of Max's column to get into. There's a very incomprehensible section here that I want to highlight.
00:33:58
Speaker
The NDP's head-scratching decision to announce a 3% corporate tax-race increase activated anxieties many Calgarians had about the NDP's time in office, particularly about the party's handling of the economy. Never mind that said, record was mostly a function of collapsing oil prices, or that NDP governments have traditionally been better stewards of the budget and the economy than their conservative counterparts. Because the NDP has refused to actually tell their own economic story, they invited the UCP to tell it for them, and it elected Smith.
00:34:24
Speaker
The time to announce that sort of tax increase is when oil prices inevitably crash, and the province's dependence on fossil fuel revenues becomes more obvious and urgent. The Alberta's NDP decision to release a fully-costed platform and a balanced budget might have pleased the tiny handful of economists in the province, but did little to reach the voters they actually needed. In the process, they walked into the same trap that ensnared Thomas Mulcair in 2015 and cost him his own chance of governing.
00:34:46
Speaker
Lessons here should be clear by now. Managerial competence does not excite people, and playing directly into your opponent's framing of an issue is a good way to get crushed by it. So there's a lot going on in that series of paragraphs. And some of it's, I mean, some of it, Max, is correct about it. I think he's... Yeah, Thomas Mulcair sucks that whole idea. He's talking of both sides of his mouth here, clearly. But, you know, I do appreciate what one side has to say about
00:35:13
Speaker
I don't know what an economic story is, but I think if he's referring to the fact that the NDP didn't talk about its record when it was lost in power,
00:35:26
Speaker
and allowed the UCP to bring that up and say, what's the NDP trying to hide? He's correct. I don't know if he's saying that. I think the part about balanced budgets, only impressing a small clique of economists is spot on. So credit to Max for that. But the part about corporate taxes, I want to focus on that because
00:35:54
Speaker
Again, I'm not an economist, so maybe I'm out of my depth here. Talking about raising corporate taxes, 3%. Don't campaign on raising corporate taxes, just do it when oil prices crash.
00:36:14
Speaker
Yeah, but he's saying so. It brought up bad memories. It triggered the trauma of Calgary suburbanites from the last NDP government because it reminded them of how the economy was bad.
00:36:31
Speaker
So the NDP should wait until the economy is bad to talk about raising corporate taxes. Correct. Yes, that is the sequence of events he is proposing. Now, again, not an economist, but it seems to me that the best time to talk about raising corporate taxes would be when the price of oil is high, not in corporate. When they're making profits. Yeah, when corporate profits are record highs, are at a record high and not
00:37:00
Speaker
when they're at a low. O'Reilly When they're at a low, because then the corporations will just say, well, we don't have any money. I guess we'll have to go elsewhere. And, of course, that- O'Reilly Never mind that Suncor cannot pick up shop and go elsewhere. But, I mean, I'm not an economist either, but I believe corporate taxes should be 100%. But that's just me.
00:37:20
Speaker
Max has a final bit, which I think will lead naturally into our bit of closing conversation here, which is that, quote, progressives in Alberta shouldn't despair, though. They will have time to develop their own economic story for the province and find the right people who can tell it most effectively. They should do that most aggressively in the Calgary and Edmonton area ridings they didn't win this time.
00:37:40
Speaker
the more suburban areas populated by people who tend to vote with their families pocketbook in mind. Whether you like it or not, and many people don't, in Alberta politics, it's always the economy, stupid. The sooner the NDP smartens up about that, the better." I think he brings up a very like, okay, what should be done? His point is like, do the same campaign you did last time, but do it better is essentially his advice.
00:38:06
Speaker
Yeah, like I need you to do what you did last time I just needed to tweak your your economic story dial by about 18 points like ways an economic story like like and How is that separated like I get like I know max is and I think he's correct about this is a big proponent of like that You need to tell a good story
00:38:25
Speaker
Yeah, anyone and that's true. Of course, that's true. But like, what's an economic story? And how is that separate from like the broader narrative you're trying to tell? Like, I think he's just using the words economic story because it sounds like
00:38:41
Speaker
It's a nice, it's buzz wordy. It's like, ah, yes. But yeah, I mean, they do need to tell a better story, but you can't do that when you're targeting this hyper-specific demographic. I need you to tell a good economic story for the 200,000 people that live around Edmonton, that live in those writings, and then also the 200,000 people that live in the Edmonton Donut and that live in the fringes of Calgary. And it's like, okay, come on, man. You need to tell a good story for everyone. You need to be able to bring everyone along with your fucking story.
00:39:09
Speaker
That's not how messaging works. That's not how campaigning works. This is just part of the brain worms that all political parties have, this micro-targeting shit. Instead of doing mass politics, they just want to focus on suburban moms who drive Honda Odysseys, who shop at Shabon. O'Reilly, shopping for votes, which is a quite good book by Susan Delacorte.
00:39:32
Speaker
Don't say that about a lot of the stuff she's writing. No, no, no. But I think it's like, what is to be done, though, right? The classic, you know, of Vladimir Lenin line is like... Wow, from Delacorte to Lenin. What is to be done here? And I don't
Leadership and Political Engagement
00:39:45
Speaker
agree with Max that they need to tell a better story. I do think they need to do... You don't think they need to tell a better story? Well, they do. But like, that is, that is, that is facile, like that facile. That like doesn't mean anything.
00:39:54
Speaker
Like it's easy to say they need to tell about our story, but what is it? And he doesn't say what it is. No, just like he doesn't explain the part about what he actually thinks they did wrong. I mean, or that why the NDP moving leftward is an even worse idea than.
00:40:11
Speaker
Muckerman. Your piece had some advice about what could be done internally within the ENDP. What was that? Sorry, which piece are we talking about? You keep writing pieces. Your piece that's sifting through the wreckage of the election. Oh, okay, so this is my sub-stack piece. Okay, because we were talking about my breach piece earlier.
00:40:31
Speaker
You were going on about the people at the NDP, the leadership needs to be replaced. Do you see that? Get rid of them. Purge them. Notley and her clique, they need to be removed from the party. Notley is clearly stuck in the past.
00:40:50
Speaker
um and uh we need someone with an actual progressive vision that can actually be contrasted with the ucp's like um apocalyptic uh agenda and and this wasn't it we need someone who will talk about climate change and isn't going to brag about building a pipeline like it's 2023 the province is on fire yeah i get it you had to do what you had to do or at least you've
00:41:18
Speaker
did what you thought you had to do. Fine. I mean, the pipeline's going to be useless in 10 years, so it's going to lose even more money. But stop talking about it. Yeah, so I think, unsurprisingly, my diagnosis is the precise opposite of what Max's is.
00:41:42
Speaker
Well, can you imagine any other context where you would fail twice, so conclusively, and that you would be given a third chance to do the same thing and fail again? You fail twice, but surely the third time it will succeed. In any other context, those people would be replaced, and different people with different ideas would be brought in. Yeah, but consultant's going to consultant.
00:42:05
Speaker
And, yeah, I think you're right. I mean, I think the time of outsourcing... Consultants can consult. I think the time of outsourcing our politics to a small coterie of NDP elite is over.
00:42:17
Speaker
I think regardless of whether or not Rachel Notley stays on in the next election, which I think is pretty unlikely to be honest, the people at the top of the NDP need to be replaced fresh blood, needs to be brought in, and the people who are brought in need to embrace mass politics. I think you cannot hope to defeat the UCP. You cannot hope to defeat, again, the oil and gas oligarchs and the business tyrants who really run this province without a mass of people behind you.
00:42:47
Speaker
And doing this will be hard. I don't pretend. Of the things you can do, say you're anxious about this result and say you want to get involved, you want to do something, changing the NDP from within is very difficult. It's going to be very frustrating. You are going to run into people who are going to be working very hard to frustrate you. But that is an option. There are other options, though, that don't involve party politics. And I think the overwhelming view here is that
00:43:12
Speaker
Electoral politics and party politics are the only politics that exist, and that's not true. I think there is a door to open that everyone who works, and it's the labor movement. I don't think people usually think about the labor movement like this, because most folks sadly aren't personally connected to it anymore. Union membership is declining year over year, and as an institution, it's involved less and less in our lives. But a regular-ass person in Red Deer with a regular-ass bank account
00:43:43
Speaker
doesn't have a great shot necessarily of making a dent in electoral politics. But if they get involved in labor movement, they do have a way of turning their labor power into political power. If you unionize your workplace, you become part of a larger union with financial resources. That union can actually exercise power because it represents other workers who are very motivated and who share your values. You can also take part in a union that's far more democratic than even being involved in party politics.
00:44:11
Speaker
That's worth pointing out as well. The best part about the labor movement as a vector of political change and political power is, say you and your coworkers organize the place where you work, and you actually gain real power. The solidarity you build with your coworkers and your ability to collectively withhold your labor gives you real political power that Daniel Smith and Rachel Notley can't touch.
00:44:40
Speaker
It can actually improve your life and the lives of every working person in Alberta. If you're part of a union, get involved. If you're not a part of a union, start taking steps to unionize your workplace. If you need some advice on how to do that, I'd be happy to point you in the right direction. Again, it's work. All of this is work. Unionizing your workplace is hard. Doing a change from within, within the NDP is hard. But this is what it takes.
00:45:05
Speaker
Yeah, I thought Nora made a very good point in her newsletter on the Alberta election in that, you know, she acknowledged that, yeah, an NDP that ran a more progressive campaign probably wouldn't have won either just because there isn't really that movement, that mass movement in Alberta that
00:45:28
Speaker
it could champion. I do think it needs to start from the ground. I think people should obviously get involved in your unions if you have one. If you don't have one, talk to your co-workers about starting one. Get involved with Climate Justice Edmonton, for example, Public Interest Alberta.
00:45:52
Speaker
I mean,
Collective Action and Political Change
00:45:54
Speaker
there are- There are mutual aid groups, people who are helping people on the ground. Yeah, I mean, because it's one thing of just changing who's in power in the NDP and trying to get, which is going to be an uphill battle because Rachel has such a stranglehold over, I mean, it's her family business, right? And I don't mean that to discount her accomplishments and failures, frankly,
00:46:21
Speaker
the ndp leader but you know i mean it's her dad was leader of the party right i mean she's deeply entrenched and so it's one thing to because it's one thing to challenge her electorally it's quite another that build the movement that
00:46:41
Speaker
can either, that will challenge her, right? And I think both are necessary.
00:46:53
Speaker
No, I think you make a good point. It's going to be hard. And whatever stream you choose, whether it's change from within with the NDP, whether it's getting involved in the labor movement, whether it's being a part of social movements or mutual aid groups, all those require showing up. No one is going to do this for you. It's going to take collective action. But at the end of the day, we have to have each other's backs because Daniel Smith and the fucking goons running the UCP are not going to have ours. And so it is going to be up to us.
00:47:17
Speaker
I think that's a great way to end
Conclusion and Follow Jeremy Appell
00:47:19
Speaker
it. Jeremy, what's the best way for people to follow along with your work and support the great journalism that you do? I would first and foremost subscribe to the Orchard. That's the orchard.substack.com. If you can fork over five bucks a month, that would be amazing. If not, I would still love to have you as a reader.
00:47:43
Speaker
I do put some stuff behind paywalls reluctantly. But if I break a story, which I do on occasion, or I have something I want everyone to read, it will be available to the public. So really, any support would be great. You can find me on Twitter. I'm there till the ship sinks at JeremyAppell1025.
00:48:07
Speaker
And I'm on blue sky. I've got a blue sky account. Oh shit. I don't have any invites at the moment Yeah, I'm not on there yet when you do get one send them my way Yeah, I think I already promised it someone else. They're really keeping it tight. Yeah. Yeah I think they're trying to build hype around it, right? Um, but my blue sky handle I believe is just my first name dot my last name and
00:48:31
Speaker
But I think you can probably just find me on there by searching my name. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, I guess I'm on Instagram, Appel dot Jeremy. You know, I post some of my work on there and also, you know, fun, non-political photos.
00:48:50
Speaker
Yeah, follow Jeremy on the socials. Subscribe to The Orchard if you haven't already. It's really good shit. And also, if you have any notes, thoughts, comments, things you think I need to hear as a host, I am very easy to reach. I am on Twitter far too often, again, until the ship sinks at Dunkin' Kinney. And you can reach me by email at dunkincay at progressuberta.ca as well. Thank you to Jim Story for editing, and also a salute to Jim for all the work he's put in. He's going to go in for surgery right away, and he will be away for a month or two.
00:49:19
Speaker
We wish him all the best in his recovery. Thank you to Cosmic Family Communist for our amazing theme, thank you for listening, and goodbye.