Attacks, lies and videotape

Well, it’s an interesting pivot, if nothing else.

Thursday night, current and past Conservative supporters heard a message from a familiar ex-politician.

“Andrew Scheer and I both know that it’s time for you to get ahead. Your help is critical as we head into the 2019 federal election. I’m asking for you to donate today — to help secure a Conservative majority government this fall.”

The politician? Former prime minister Stephen Harper. The Conservatives haven’t necessarily been in Harper-denial — after all, he is arguably the most successful Conservative leader in Canada in recent history. But since the Conservatives lost in 2015, the party has seemed to soft-pedal any connection between the Harper-era Conservatives and the current crew. That’s apparently changed.

But it’s not the only thing that’s changed.

The Tory fundraising pitch included a video of Harper asking for support — a video that was quickly co-opted by the federal Liberals, who, in mere hours, posted their own link to the same video as a Liberal fundraiser, saying, “The Conservatives don’t like it when we point out that Andrew Scheer wants to take Canada back to the days of Stephen Harper. … Well don’t take our word for it, just listen to Harper fundraising for Scheer in this new video. Donate now to choose forward with Justin Trudeau rather than going backwards under Stephen Harper. Sorry, we meant Andrew Scheer.”

What’s it mean? Well, it probably depends on how you feel about Harper. Both the Liberals and the Conservatives are preaching more to the converted than to anything else, trying to raise funds from people already clearly identified as their supporters.

What does it mean to everyone else?

Perhaps that this election is going to involve very fast thrust-and-parry attacks that will move almost instantaneously through the social media world.

As a result, there will be mistakes and misinformation, and there are almost certain to be real clangers as politicians angle to have their attacks go viral — even if it turns out those attacks are wrong or misstated.

In other words, it’s going to be fast and nasty, and it’s unlikely that any party is going to be able to stay on any sort of high ground.

It also means that we are all virtually guaranteed to be bombarded with information of questionable accuracy. Shoot-from-the-lip messages have always had clear risks, but since they are weaponized and unstoppable once released on social media, their impact can be much more widespread.

It adds an extra burden on all of us to ensure that what we read on social media is actually true before we “like” it or share it with online friends and acquaintances.

If you’re joyfully repeating a lie, after all, you’re lying, too.

Many people seem to have forgotten that fact.