Now They're Extremists?

 


My jaw dropped a bit when I read, first Coyne, then Ibbitson, decry the Conservative caucus' descent into extremism.

I could be wrong. I read Coyne sometimes and Ibbitson infrequently but I don't recall them previously lamenting the Tory slide into an extremist rabble.

Per Coyne:

associating the party with known racists, tossing around incendiary rhetoric about other party leaders, indulging in discredited conspiracy theories – it is long since time Conservatives stopped tolerating this.

If that splits the party further, so be it. A house divided against itself cannot stand. But a house filled with lunatics is an asylum.

Per Ibbitson:

The Conservatives could be evolving into an untenable contradiction, in which no one who could lead the party can win the country, and no one who could win the country can lead the party.

many in that caucus espouse a view of conservatism that has no resonance among most Canadians.

Say it ain't so, John. A party ideologically at odds with most Canadians? How long have you been beating that drum? And, Andrew, "a house filled with lunatics," did you just discover that? Are you baring your souls in hopes that can avert a slide into Poilievre territory?

Again, I could be reading both Coyne and Ibbitson wrong and I do stand to be corrected. Their epiphany just seems a day late and a dollar short.

Let the games begin.


Comments

  1. Bill MalcolmFebruary 2, 2022 at 11:18 AM

    I know nothing about Ibbotson. Coyne appears every Thursday night on CBC The National's political panel hosted by Rosemary Barton. For some time now, he's been very critical of the Tories. I finally realized he had jumped ship from the National Post and Black's baleful influence, to the Globe. Obviously he had not been happy parroting the usual Conservative themes of general horse manure on everything under the Sun. In any case, since that move, I've found Coyne reasonably erudite and never really disagreed with anything he's had to say. He's very well spoken.

    Anyway, thank goodness for Canada, the CPC MPs have ditched the Old Foole, and fairly convincingly, 73/118. They now can behave like the complete nutbars they claim to want to be. Niche-vote-chasing, mouth-foaming lunatics little different from the execrable Bernier. They're obviously no longer a viable national political party -- I'd bet none can speak French properly. The 45 people who voted to keep O'Toole are in the main what we used to call PCs, though skewed in outlook to the right by having to rub shoulders with prairie reform stumblebums for a few years.

    I guess our version of the US's Deep South is the swathe of land from Northern Ontario to Northern BC, with a good proportion of people living in the main cities not completely and irretrievably lost to complete bull-headed nonsense. The remainder can whine and complain all they like, but nobody else is listening.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Disaffected LibFebruary 2, 2022 at 12:39 PM

      Moderate or "old school" Tories may be forced to choose whether to go with the mob or go their own way, back to something resembling progressive conservatism.

      Peter MacKay sold the PCs down the river despite his open pledge to never do such a thing. Harper made MacKay his boy.

      My Conservative insider tells me that former Ontario PC leader, Patrick Brown, has been busily working the room recently.

      Delete
  2. Brian DundasFebruary 2, 2022 at 12:24 PM

    It is cute that our few remaining Red Tories in the media are finally coming around to face the stank in their party and conservatism in general.

    I mean, what took them so long?

    Now, will they go for the money and come around to Trumpism?

    If history is any guide, the vast majority will.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Disaffected LibFebruary 2, 2022 at 12:46 PM

      Brian, my sense is that the progressive side realize this swing to the far right is a bad bet, at least outside the Prairie provinces. Reform has been a millstone round their necks since 1987.

      Perhaps Ibbitson is right. We might be witnessing an ugly divorce in the making.

      Delete

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