The more certain you are of anything in politics, the less certain you should be.
It was something my dad – a millworker whose insights guided most of my journalism career – mentioned to me many times.
Small parallels between living in Canada next to the American political force and living in Holland beside Germany in the 1920s and 30s worried him. If you don’t pay close attention – if you don’t remain politically uncertain – small things quickly grow large.
It’s not always bad outcomes that defy certainty, but they’re the ones that can turn into “too late.”
It becomes more complex and difficult when each of us tries to define what’s “bad.”
Langley City’s 1988 mayoralty election gave me my first clear example of Dad’s thesis in action. The old-guard politicians were so certain that Alderman Reg Easingwood was a shoo-in, that upstart Joe Lopushinsky (whom they detested) walked right past him.
Langley Township’s old guard similarly succumbed to their certainty when Rick Green executed a surprise upset 20 years later.
And of course, the whole world’s certainty has been and continues to be challenged by Donald Trump, who I’m certain is going to complete his four-year term… unless he blows up the world first.
Right now, most of B.C. is certain that Premier Christy Clark’s Liberal government will be replaced by John Horgan’s NDP/Green pseudo-coalition.
Probably… but I’d rather bet on drawing to an inside straight.
That’s because everyone’s certainty is sitting on a foundation of anger. Liberals are angrily certain they “won” the election with the most seats. Everyone else is angrily certain Christy was voted out of office.
But we don’t have an American-style two-party system in which voters knowingly elect a four-year-term dictator. We don’t elect our government leader, we elect local representatives who, in turn, choose our leader… and can choose a new one any time, without all the rigmarole Americans face.
There is nothing wrong with a minority government in our system – in fact, there is everything right about it, when a coalition of minorities represents a majority of voters.
But if only one NDP MLA thinks more like a Clark Liberal than a Horgan New Democrat, Christy keeps the corner office.
However angrily certain you are that that’s wrong, it is in fact exactly the way our very successful system is supposed to work.
Minorities make politicians work hard.
