Remind Me, How Does This Story End?

You know, when I read Thomas Frank's, 'The Trouble With Kansas', I was hoping it might serve as a warning to Canadians not to fall into the same trap, but instead, it seems like it has served as a road-map for some people to push Canadians into that trap.

Here's a quote from Warren Kinsella (Jan 22):

"With every photo op (the one around Christmas, showing the Tory leader taking his kids to a hockey rink like this one), with every positive statement (Harper stressing his middle-class roots in places like Leaside, where this rink is located), with every critical statement (the continual references to Paul Martin's millions, and his decision to fly his pollution-spewing ships under foreign flags - to avoid paying taxes like the rest of us do). With everything they did, the Tory campaign was all about the revenge of the hockey Moms and Dads.

It wasn't about Left versus Right. It wasn't about Urban versus Rural. It wasn't about East versus West. It wasn't about French versus English.

It was about us (the people at hockey rinks, holding cups from Tim's or Coffee Time) versus the elites (the ones who have never been on public transit*, and who read the Sunday Times at Starbucks).

To some folks, that probably sounds pretty simplistic. But that's the way I approach the election campaigns I've been privileged to be involved in. Keep it simple. What's the story people want to hear? What's the story we should telling them? Simple.

Stephen Harper will win because he's told the story people want to hear, and because he deserves to win."

When it comes to political instincts, Kinsella is pretty sharp, and his assertion that Harper will win because he told people a story they want to hear sounds plausible to me.

After all, who doesn't want to stick it to the man, to show up those expensive coffee drinking snobs who are always looking down on 'us', to get one back at 'the elite'.

So let's consider how voting Conservative sticks it to the man, to the latte, to the elite.

I know if I was in the elite, nothing would trouble me more than the prospect of cuts to capital gains taxes, cuts to sales taxes, cuts to corporate taxes, less spending on the poor and disadvantaged, and a child care plan that provides the same benefit to millionaires as it does to single parents. Yeah, I bet the elite is shaking in its boots - that must be why West Vancouver, one of the wealthiest ridings in the country, is most likely going to elect a Conservative.

Look, if the Conservative want to tell a story, that's their right. And if people want to believe it, that's their right too. All I'm saying is people should consider how the story ends - and it's not a happy ending if you were voting to show up the elite.

Here's some free advice for anyone casting a vote to upset the elite: Don't vote for the party that was endorsed by the Globe and Mail. Don't vote for the parties that are supported by all the wealthy media owners and opinion makers this country has to offer. Don't vote for a party that lives in fear of offending the American elites. Don't vote for a party whose biggest change to government revenue will be to reduce the taxes paid by the wealthy and by corporations.

It's easy to tell when you're doing something that truly alarms the elites, because they start squawking loud and long (Thomas D'Aquino is the canary in this particular mine). Imagine if polls suggested an NDP majority. Imagine a referendum on electoral reform at the federal level. Imagine proposals for a tax system which was actually significantly progressive. Imagine the howls of anguish ringing from all the corporate controlled media across the country - that's what taking on the elite looks and sounds like.

Here's my point: if you have other reasons for voting Conservative or Liberal, fine by me. But if you're voting for either of these parties because you think it is some kind of anti-elite anti-Starbucks, anti-Sunday Times, pro-transit statement you're making, well, all I can say is someone sold you a story, and you bought it like the simple-minded sucker Warren seems to think you are. Want to make the true elite sweat? Vote NDP or Green.


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* Never been on Transit? - Huh? The people who've never been on public transit are the Conservative voters. Seriously, if you wanted to take one piece of information on a riding and use it to predict whether it would go Conservative or not, your best bet would be to look at transit usage and call any riding where it was high to go NDP or Liberal and any riding where it was low to go Conservative.

Furthermore, could we retire the sadly overused, yet obviously inaccurate, cliché that the people waiting in line for coffee at Starbucks are the elite? Sheesh.