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— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) April 11, 2017
![]() ![]() ![]() “Warren Kinsella's book, ‘Fight the Right: A Manual for Surviving the Coming Conservative Apocalypse,’ is of vital importance for American conservatives and other right-leaning individuals to read, learn and understand.” - The Washington Times “One of the best books of the year.” - The Hill Times “Justin Trudeau’s speech followed Mr. Kinsella’s playbook on beating conservatives chapter and verse...[He followed] the central theme of the Kinsella narrative: “Take back values. That’s what progressives need to do.” - National Post “[Kinsella] is a master when it comes to spinning and political planning...” - George Stroumboulopoulos, CBC TV “Kinsella pulls no punches in Fight The Right...Fight the Right accomplishes what it sets out to do – provide readers with a glimpse into the kinds of strategies that have made Conservatives successful and lay out a credible roadmap for progressive forces to regain power.” - Elizabeth Thompson, iPolitics “[Kinsella] deserves credit for writing this book, period... he is absolutely on the money...[Fight The Right] is well worth picking up.” - Huffington Post “Run, don't walk, to get this amazing book.” - Mike Duncan, Classical 96 radio “Fight the Right is very interesting and - for conservatives - very provocative.” - Former Ontario Conservative leader John Tory “His new book is great! All of his books are great!” - Tommy Schnurmacher, CJAD “I absolutely recommend this book.” - Paul Wells, Maclean’s “Kinsella puts the Left on the right track with new book!” - Calgary Herald ![]() ![]() ![]() From the York Region District School Board trustees, facing a bit of a challenge of their own.
UPDATE: Being proactive and taking full responsibility is working for them, looks like. Just saw the Minister of Education on TV, saying: “I am very pleased to see that trustees are moving forward and wanting to take action in a positive direction. They understand the urgent need to restore the confidence in the York Region School Board.”
Can you lose by winning? It’s not a riddle, it’s a fair question. Surveying the wreckage that now litters the Conservative landscape, it’s a timely question, too. Because, make no mistake: the Conservatives’ leadership race has dramatically set back their party, perhaps for years to come. Among other things, it has revealed the once-great Conservative Party of Canada to be nasty, brutish and short-sighted. It has transformed a modern, broad-based political party into a posse of xenophobic, paranoid Duck Dynasty types – rubes who look like they’d rather jail an immigrant than attend a banquet with one. By selecting a winner, the Conservative Party of Canada has rendered itself a loser, and wholly undeserving of power. Some historical context. Stephen Harper’s greatest political achievements, you see, were not what you would think. They weren’t the things that he didn’t do. Five points. One, he didn’t outlaw abortion or gay marriage, contrary to what this writer (and many others) predicted. Two, he didn’t make the great global recession of 2008-2009 worse. While he may have initially denied the recession was coming, when it did, Harper tossed off his fiscal conservative cape, and commenced spending like a proverbial drunken sailor. It worked. Three, he didn’t send us into war. When he was Opposition leader, Harper infamously called Canadians who opposed George W. Bush’s Iraq war “cowards.” But, once ensconced in power, the Conservative Prime Minister embraced his inner peacenik: he didn’t put boots on the ground in the fight against ISIS – Justin Trudeau did. And he didn’t deploy Canadian Forces in the most lethal region in Afghanistan – Paul Martin did. Four, Stephen Harper – unlike so many in the Reform Party firmament – didn’t ignore Quebec, or preside over a revitalized separatist movement. Instead, he started every single speech with French, no matter where he was. He didn’t give the always-humiliated nationalists their hoped-for humiliations. And, as a result, his party didn’t do badly in Quebec, at all – in 2015, in fact, when the CPC lost power, the only province in which they grew was Quebec. Fifth and final, Stephen Harper didn’t wreck the place. We’re still here. And, when one considers the post-Brexit and post-Trump chaos that has descended on the heads of our two closest allies – well, we are pretty lucky, aren’t we? But those things – what Stephen Harper didn’t do – aren’t achievements. You don’t get awards for what you don’t do. You don’t get your name on the side of a school somewhere for acting like a sensible, centrist adult. That’s what you are supposed to be doing in the first place. No, Stephen Harper’s two greatest political achievements – and, by extension, the Conservative Party’s – were the reason why he won in 2006, and again in 2008, and again in 2011. They are simply these:
So, what has the post-Harper Conservative Party done? It has turned its back on Stephen Harper’s two greatest achievements. It has repudiated the very things that won them power in 2006. The Conservative leadership race has been fractious and divisive. It has seen progressive conservatives like Michael Chong booed for promoting modernism – and unrepentant Reformers, like Kellie Leitch, cheered for championing racism. It has seen smart, traditional PCs like Lisa Raitt marginalized and ignored, and immigrant-baiting nobodies like Steven Blaney and Brad Trost given marquee treatment. And, if the 2016-2017 Conservative leadership race is to be remembered for anything at all, it will be its willingness to replicate Donald Trump-style bigotry in Canada – and the narrow, mean-spirited bumper-sticker politics it has championed along the way. Too many of their leadership candidates have forsaken what Stephen Harper did. Too many have forgotten that, by coming together and bringing new Canadians into the Conservative fold, the Conservatives finally won power. The Conservative Party will have a winner in its leadership race in May, to be sure. It will have won that much. But, by winning, it will have lost the country, likely for many years to come.
Krugman in the New York Times:
David Frum, one of the few principled Republicans left, made essentially the same point over on Twitter:
This – I say as a former full-time journalist, a teacher of journalism, and a lifelong student of journalism – is a profound failing of the journalistic craft. From the first day in J-school, you see, we are trained to “get the other side of the story.” So, we ferret out the “other side” – even if that side of the so-called dialectic is a proven liar, or a devoted neo-Nazi, or is just one deranged voice in opposition to millions of sane ones. And we bestow upon that single addled voice as much credibility and prominence as the many on the other side of the divide. That dynamic – along with the equally false one that prohibits us from passing “value judgments” – gives the solitary lunatic/white supremacist even more credibility. Even when we know that Donald Trump is a racist, sexist conspiracy nut who is unfit for the position of dog catcher, let alone President of the United States. Even then. My (aspirational, ideal) journalism takes judicial notice of reality: i.e., racism is bad, sexually assaulting women is bad. It is okay to say so; it is imperative we say so. And, ipso facto, it is bad journalism to call white supremacy “white nationalism” and neo-Naziism “the alt-Right.” My (perfect world) journalism rejects giving as much prominence to a misogynistic loser who lives in his Mommy’s basement as I would to an accredited surrogate of Hillary Clinton. That is doing a disservice to reality, and disservice to one’s readers. Will any of this change? Perhaps. Maybe. I’ve seen scattered evidence, since January 20, that Messrs. Krugman and Frum aren’t alone: many journalists are starting to accept that they are partly culpable for Trump’s improbable victory, and are doing what the Russians (ironically, given what should be the top news of 2017) call samokritika – self-criticism. Journalists are starting to accept that some of the traditional journalistic aphorisms – “getting the other side” and “no value judgments ever” – aren’t doing us, or them, any good. They create a false reality, because they’re fake news. And we all know who benefitted most from the explosion in fake news in 2016, don’t we?
My son is at Vimy today with his St Mike’s classmates – and I know he will always remember the significance of it. More than 3,500 Canadians killed, more than 7,000 wounded. But the Canadians drove out the German Sixth Army, and – as some say – Canada itself came of age. I didn’t want to post a picture of the monument. I wanted a picture of the men who fought there, because I think that is what Vimy Ridge is about.
When I run everything, this is the only sort of thing I will allow on TV.
I still stand by most of it. Link here. Snippets:
I’m bewildered as to why Trump gave the Syrians advance warning that he was going to bomb Syria. But I’m delighted Trudeau has said exactly the right thing, in precisely the right way. Kudos.
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