Tks, @kinsellawarren for an amazing lecture, and a wonderful visit generally. But next time, lose the weather. OK? Please? @lisakinsella – you’d have been pleased; he scrubbed up nicely for the day. @UCalgaryLaw pic.twitter.com/WXTB9SEBUS
— Ian Holloway (@LawDeanHolloway) March 15, 2018
This afternoon, I will be doing the Merv Leitch Memorial Lecture at my alma mater, the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Law.
The topic, as the poster says, is the explosion in hate and extremism post-Brexit and post-Trump. And what we, in a civil society, can do about it.
It’s open to the public and it starts around 12:20 Calgary time in Murray Fraser Hall. If you can’t attend, I will try to broadcast it on Facebook Live.
Can someone in Canadian media explain why no Canadian media are covering this?
I’m in Edmonton Wednesday, and Calgary Thursday, to give the Merv Leitch Lecture at U of C’s and U of A’s Faculties of Law. It’s a great honour.
The lectures are open to the public and you are welcome to attend. Hope to see you there!
I hate Twitter threads, but I got started and kept going. Here it is.
1. Doug Ford is good news for Andrea Horwath. If Horwath gets out of the political equivalent of the witness protection program, that is. #onpoli
— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) March 11, 2018
2. Kathleen Wynne is Hillary Clinton to Doug Ford’s Donald Trump? Not really. Here’s why. #onpoli
— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) March 11, 2018
3. Depicting Doug Ford as a racist like Trump won’t work. Ford Nation has always had huge – huge – support among new Canadians who share his views on taxes, cultural change and pointy-headed urbanites.
— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) March 11, 2018
4. Going after Doug Ford because he allegedly sold weed three decades ago won’t work either – given that Ontario’s government this week started aggressively marketing the selling of weed. By Ontario’s government. #onpoli
— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) March 11, 2018
5. Going after Doug Ford because he’s a politically incorrect, rough-around-the-edges guy with a paunch won’t work. Ontario is full of politically incorrect, rough-around-the-edges guys with a paunch. #onpoli
— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) March 11, 2018
6. When the downtown media and the urban commentariat go after him, as they will, it plays into Doug Ford’s hands. “See?” he will say. “They’re not just mocking me. They’re mocking you, too, Joe and Jane Frontporch.” #onpoli
— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) March 11, 2018
7. Doug Ford is not the city councillor he once was. Back then, he had a brother who was a drug addict and who was always in trouble. Defending his brother, he’s told me, was his entire focus. His brother is now gone, and he *has* changed. #ONpoli
— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) March 11, 2018
8. The people who say Doug Ford doesn’t represent the real Ontario don’t know the real Ontario. To them, Ontario is what they drive through to get to their cottages on the weekend. #ONpoli
— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) March 11, 2018
9. Doug Ford voters aren’t just angry. They feel they’re the forgotten – that they don’t matter to those of us who live downtown and make all the decisions all the time. Ford’s voters love him because he won’t forget them. #onpoli
— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) March 11, 2018
10. Jean Chretien, Bill Clinton, Ralph Klein, Mel Lastman, Brad Wall and so on – they were all smart guys (who hid how smart they were) and had the common touch (when their opponents didn’t). Doug Ford is like that. Underestimate him at your peril. #ONpoli
— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) March 11, 2018
So I tweeted stuff.
Pro tips, PC friends:
From a few years back:
…as I argue in my book Fight The Right, the political brain is an emotional organ, not a rational one. On voting day, passion generally defeats reason. Values, as simplistic as they may seem to progressives, rule.
Values – that is, hopes, dreams, fears, the ineffable stuff of life – are deeply held, deeply emotional notions. Mountains of data make clear that conservatives are very good at values-based debates, and progressives usually are not.
Conservatives have achieved supremacy in the European Union, Canada and the United States – jurisdictions where the majority of voters identify themselves as progressive – by expertly dominating the values debate, whether the subject matter is class resentments or fighting terror. Progressives, meanwhile, too often become tongue tied when talking about values. They’re not good at it.
As a result, voters (even progressive ones) drift towards conservative politicians and parties because they equate urban, university-educated progressives’ (a) reluctance to talk about values with (b) having no values at all.
