How We Must Fight Harper's Dirty Game

OK. First the good news. After one week of campaigning the progressive side has been doing better than many people imagined. Michael Ignatieff has shown himself to be a good campaigner. Jack Layton has been heroic. And there is still enough time to turn things around.

Now the bad news. Unless we sharpen our attack, Stephen Harper could win his majority and destroy the Canada we know and love.

So we need to understand that the same old same old won't work. Not in a country as disengaged, greedy, or increasingly Con brutish as this one. Not when the monster tyrant is playing this dirty game.

This is the Harper pitch for 2011. He varies it at each stop. Sometimes he leaves the sea of troubles out. But it’s always the same argument. Life is not perfect in Canada but it’s getting better. Peril lies all around. If Canadians throw off the protective embrace of Harper’s Conservatives… well… well then the Visigoths will descend, won’t they? And by the time they are done with us, everything Canadians cherish will lie in ruin.

There’s a chunk of the electorate who like the Conservatives more than other parties but who have been nervous at the thought of a Conservative majority. Rather than take that fear away, Harper is touring the country giving them a bigger fear that trumps it.

This guy’s going to be hard to stop.

So what do we do? Answer: we turn this fear against him. We stop bringing a knife to a gunfight. And we attack him like he attacks us.

It comes down to this, distasteful as it may seem: The opposition parties must match Harper's ruthlessness, even his hatred for opponents, if they want to save the country from a Harper majority. If they need to leave a little Tory blood on the ice, metaphorically speaking, then so be it. There are no penalties for roughing in politics.

Because we badly need to understand one thing. In the distracted world we live in, if a message isn't simple and blunt, most Canadians won't hear it. And if they don't FEEL it, they won't care.

As George Lakoff and many others have pointed out, conservatives are highly effective in getting their views across and their policies adopted not just because they control major media outlooks and think tanks, but because they have powerful narratives that appeal directly to gut emotions. Until progressives not only have a better understanding of how emotions fundamentally shape political issues, but also incorporate them into their appeals, they will continue to lose the hearts and minds of the wider populace.

When I look at our attack ads so far, I see a lot of clever well made ones that condemn the Cons for their ethical lapses, but are too cute for their own good.They may impress us, but they do nothing to move the population. Because they think ALL politicians are crooks. And it doesn't affect THEM.

So we need to show them that when Harper talks about tax cuts, his secret plan is to bankrupt government. So it can't fund social services or medicare. And what that means is that they, or their child, or their granny could end up in some ghastly welfare hospital.

Because they can't pay their medical bills. And they can cry all night but nobody will come.

We need show them that when Harper talks about stability, if he tries to change Canada beyond recognition, with the support of less than fifty per cent of the population, and largely because of concentrated support in the West, it will result in the greatest social upheaval Canada has ever seen. And could tear this country apart.

We must show that actions have consequences, and counter Harper's attempts to make the idea of a coalition seem scary, by painting a nightmare vision of what a Harper majority might look like.

A dark authoritarian place, with no women's rights, no gay rights, kids getting raped in jail for the crime of smoking marijuana. Poor people starving in the streets. Guns everywhere just like in the U.S. Sinister theocons telling us what to do. Your daddy in the poor house. And your mummy in the morgue.

Because a lot of Canadians don't trust Stephen Harper and if we can feed those fears, with all the material the Cons have given us, we'll have the Cons where we want them, and they'll NEVER win a majority.

Oh sure. I realize this won't be easy for many progressives. Unlike the Cons they are decent people, and they would much rather appeal to reason.

But unfortunately reason and decency went out of the window a long time ago in this country. If we want them and our country back, we first have to crush the Cons. And this isn't a game it's a WAR. Our Canada versus Harper's Amerika.

We ARE better than them. We are Canadians, they are scummy AmeriCons. 

But when our beloved country is in mortal danger, we too can play the dirty game.

Give them a taste of their own medicine.

And hit them where it HURTS...

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h/t New Media and Politics Canada

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