Real leaders don’t burn bridges
Among the craziness that has slowly taken over democratic politics in this century is the conviction that in campaigning, policy-making, and in governing itself, it is always and necessarily a zero-sum game. “I won because you lost, sucker!” This adolescent view of the use of power to good effect — for yourself and for the people you serve — justifies its corollary: “Means don’t matter, ends do.” If I burn this bridge between us, I am safer and you are isolated and weaker. If I let you build a bridge between us, I am vulnerable and you’re a greater threat.
This reductionist politics has reached its height in the Trump administration, ultimately to its own cost.
Nowhere was its mirror image on more embarrassing display that at the ceremonies honouring George H.W. Bush, this week. Trump was seated with the Presidents Club in the front row of the National Cathedral, but every signal and gesture revealed how much the other members did not think he belonged. The Clintons’ refusal to even acknowledge his presence made clear their view that an impostor was in the room.
Looking directly at Trump, former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney, with the deepest international statesman credentials said, “… and let me tell you that when George Bush was president of the United States of America, every single head of government in the world knew they were dealing with a true gentleman, a genuine leader — one who was distinguished, resolute and brave.” The contrast could not have been more stark.
George Bush, Brian Mulroney, Jack Layton, Justin Trudeau each understood the importance that bridge building means to successful party building, as campaigners. Donald Trump, Stephen Harper, Doug Ford are champions of a different, more 21st century politics. One that celebrates exclusion and identity over inclusion and solidarity. Recently, it appears that its champions are winning.
What Bush’s time in power — only four years — blazingly highlights is what you can achieve when you govern as a bridge-builder. Campaigning in kumbaya mode is easy. Governing by painful compromise is not. Justin Trudeau, sadly, demonstrates the difference, having slid back into partisan memes too easily when in power, having promised a more accommodating governing style on the stump.
Andrew Scheer and Jagmeet Singh each promised an inclusive politics in their leadership runs. Now Scheer has threatened to join the bridge-burners before the starter’s pistol for the next campaign, whining about the negative media he will need to battle. Singh’s wobbly launch has deflected attention from his inclusive leadership promise to bookmaking on his very survival.
All three leaders might look at the Bush record — ending acid rain and apartheid, uniting Germany and in- tegrating Warsaw Pact Europe into NATO, funding expansions of health care and environmental protections, and yes, successfully raising taxes — and ask themselves how they could set a similarly impressive legacy in one term.
The answer is very clear. You abandon some of your own tribe’s orthodoxies, grant respect to, and make common cause with, your opponents and face down all those who challenge your “weakness.”
Imagine if the Trudeau government were going into this next campaign having stickhandled a compromise on electoral reform, had delivered on child care and pharmacare, and had actually achieved a broadly supported climate change agenda. They would have avoided the finger pointing fiasco of last week’s first ministers’ meeting and been virtually certain of a second majority in October.
Having chosen to play traditional partisan games on each of these files, that victory is less clear. Yes, Liberals can point out that the opposition was equally infantile in their resistance to compromise. But it is incumbent on the one who holds power to offer a hand of conciliation, of genuine commitment to compromise.
Bush paid a high price for his skill at political bridge-building. He was abandoned by many in his own party and was then defeated. As this week demonstrated, however, his near Mount Rushmore status was sealed by his often painful choices.