Negative politics exist because they work
The saddest thing about the Saskatchewan Party’s recent negative political advertising we’re seeing isn’t that it’s a reflection of today’s social-media-driven political debate (although today’s social media surely isn’t helping this age-old problem).
The saddest thing is it still works.
If one is ever inclined to see what it’s like living with a partisan mindset, follow a few old political warhorses on Twitter ... or perhaps even a few current politicians emboldened by the notion that decency and good grace are no longer qualities voters want.
Conservative, Liberal, NDP ... it really doesn’t matter the party. What they’ve always shared is a core belief that enraging, engaging and mobilizing a support base is more critical than some “subjective” view of what’s true.
Social media is often selling angry, half-truths in a dark, petty way, but this is what negative political advertising has always been.
It’s also not fair for NDP Opposition Leader Ryan Meili to categorize this as “American-style” when all parties in the Great White North have engaged in such practices for decades. In 2007, it was the NDP’S TV ads portraying Brad Wall as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, which seems rather negative. In 1967, it was tying empty whiskey bottles to election posters of Liberal premier Ross Thatcher to imply he had a drinking problem. Yep. It’s been happening here for awhile.
As a willing participant in all this, Meili’s repeated complaints about the Saskatchewan Party’s ads aimed at him do come across as a bit whiny.
After all, Meili did say Saskatchewan should “consider a modest carbon tax” made-in-saskatchewan, which would still put him in the camp envisioned by federal Environment Minister Catherine Mckenna. And Meili did call the federal court case (and the Saskatchewan government’s general opposition to the federal Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act) “a pointless crusade.”
The anti-pipeline rally Meili attended before he was an MLA was to protest the Husky oil spill in the North Saskatchewan River and the doctor mostly talked about preventing negative health outcomes. That said, there were protesters with signs — front and centre — calling for “no more pipelines” and Meili chose to be there. So is this much different than Meili and NDP supporters attaching Premier Scott Moe and his ministers to the specific fringe beliefs of those in the yellow vest movement who oppose immigration and spout global government conspiracy theories?
Sure, that grainy, black and white shot of him riding a skateboard is a demeaning attempt by the Sask. Party to somehow imply to its older, more rural demographic that Meili isn’t a serious man. (Heaven knows what the NDP — if they can get past their own piety — could now do with the images of Moe doing the moose dance.)
And there was nothing more hypocritical or misleading in this Sask. Party ad than its line: “When it was time to fight Trudeau’s equalization plan that hurts provinces like Saskatchewan, he didn’t say anything at all.”
A dozen years ago, the NDP government, the Saskatchewan Party Opposition and the federal Conservative Opposition were in 100-percent agreement that non-renewable resources should be removed from the equalization formula — a questionable national strategy, but one that would have provided Saskatchewan with $800 million more annually in federal transfer payment revenue. Soon-to-be-elected prime minister Stephen Harper made it an election platform plank in January 2006.
Only when Harper and company were confronted with the reality of implementation and the loss of Quebec votes did former premier Brad Wall and the Sask. Party do a flip flop. Conservative Saskatchewan MPS like Andrew Scheer literally hid from questions.
It’s nonsense for Moe to claim “the ads are completely factual,” but that’s not the point. It never is.
It would be nice to think politics is strictly about competing ideas and vision, but it’s never been that way. It’s always been about such ads having enough credibility to sell the notion that the alternative is worse.
The really sad thing is we still have negative political ads because they still work ... perhaps better than ever.
Mandryk is the political columnist for the Regina Leader-post.