Monday, March 26, 2018

Is That How Trudeau Won?



Is that what Chris Wylie did for the Trudeau Liberals? Did he tell the guys who paid him $100,000 what voters most wanted, what would sell?

As Michael Harris recently wrote, "Candidates no longer tell citizens what they think; they find out what voters are thinking and then reflect it back to them. It is an exercise in self-interested mind-reading."

Look at the promises Justin Trudeau made on the campaign trail only to renege on them in short order after he won. He was proclaiming what we most wanted in order to get our votes but he had no intention of delivering what he so earnestly promised. Electoral reform, an end to hazmat pipelines, proper consultation with First Nations, real action on climate change and more. Then, after Trudeau won a solid majority and was in a perfect position to deliver on his commitments, a road littered with broken promises and unconvincing excuses and apologies. 

As Harris observes, there's "a direct line between data and distrust" that leads to "a crisis of public confidence in democracy itself."

16 comments:

Jay Farquharson said...

Trudeau won because he wasn't Harper and Jack Layton was dead.

WILLY said...

I agree Jay.

The Mound of Sound said...


I think your assessments are unduly simplistic. Yes, there was an anti-Harper vote. I know more than one Conservative who voted Liberal. And, yes, Mulcair was less inspiring than Layton. That said there were a number of voters, especially coastal British Columbians, who returned Liberals based on Trudeau's promises. I know some fellow Greens who voted Liberal because they believed, based on his promises, that he was their best chance of stopping pipelines.

As far as coastal British Columbians go, we were hoodwinked.

The Mound of Sound said...


Oh yes, a lot of Greens voted strategically where the Libs were competitive based on Trudeau's promise of electoral reform. Our party, more than any other, stood to be the beneficiary of that promise.

It were these key broken promises that have alienated so many British Columbians from Canada.

Jay Farquharson said...

In Canada, you vote in your Riding, for your MP.

It ain't the US where you get to vote for a President, a Senator and a Representive.

And if you want change in Canada, then we need more MP's open to change.

The Mound of Sound said...

Thanks, Jay. I had no idea. Canada, the United States, it's so easy to get confused.

Anonymous said...

Candidates no longer tell citizens what they think; they find out what voters are thinking and then reflect it back to them. Hmmm ... I'm pretty sure that telling voters what they want to hear is as old as politics itself. So is reneging on promises. There's no "direct line between data and distrust." The direct line is between lies and distrust.

Cap

Jay Farquharson said...

One of the big corrupting influence in Canada, is the belief that you get to, or somehow "majickly" elect the PM.

A lot of "right of Layton" dippers rode Layton's platform popularity into office, which is why we got Mulclair, then Singh, and no NDP anymore. It's getting to the point that if I don't want to vote for an Austerian School Corporatist, I have to vote for the Commie.

Did you honestly believe that the Liberal Party of Canada, running to the left of the NDP and greener than many of the Green's, was going to keep their Election promises? They've always been Corporate Lite, and will always be Corporate Lite.

Did you also belive the BC Dippers were going to cancel Site C or walk away from LNG?

zoombats said...

Remember in '93" the promise to "scrap the G.S.T."? I will never forget voting for that one and bringing down the corrupt Muldoon Government. History does indeed repeat itself.

rumleyfips said...

The real problem, being pursued in The US and the UK is not the data; it's the use to which the data was put. Russian bot farms and Republican campaigns pushed anti black, anti female. anti muslim. anti LBGT etc. ads.

In Canada these themes were not used by the Liberals, the NDP or the Greens. The Conservatives were the ones trying to win by pushing racist, sexist hate. Luckily enough Canadians saw Scheer et al for the hate criminals they are and voted to marginalise them.

Northern PoV said...

Hey Mound,
You are sounding defensive....

You know I am a Russian skeptic. That's where I start from on the Cambridge story. I see an awful lot of deplorable Canucks, Brits and Yanks involved. So far, any Russian involvement looks tangential and (much like the 19 Saudi lads who looked at the US aviation as a weapons system before 9/11/2001) very opportunistic ...

As to Canada in 2015, Jay is right (not Harper) and so are you (electoral reform promise).

Don't blame conspiracy when incompetence is the obvious problem. We own this gov't just like our brethren to the south own and deserve tRump.

from the always insightful Patrick Cockburn:
"Many people who hate and fear Donald Trump feel that only political black magic or some form of trickery can explain his election as US President. They convince themselves that we are the victims of a dark conspiracy rather than that the world we live in is changing, and changing for the worse."

The Mound of Sound said...


We'll see what Wylie has to say today when he testifies about
AggregateIQ before a British Parliamentary committee. What I've heard so far is mention of money-laundering and voter suppression/manipulation.

I think we should all hold our verdicts on how significant or irrelevant this stuff might be until we are fluently algorithmic. I do know that Wylie has said their focus wasn't on data mining. That had been mastered by Kogan. The value added stuff was how to "weaponize" it which has been claimed to be akin to brainwashing.

Wylie says it was about targeting the individual, learning what sites the target was apt to visit and then blanketing those sites with their messaging tailored to that individual's fears and prejudices in a technique he called "information dominance." That's not a subtle difference from a politician getting onstage and bullshitting the audience and the cameras in attendance.

Anonymous said...

Liberals and Conservatives are one in the same, turn them upside down and they look like sisters. Whichever of these two tell the most believable lies is the party that the gullibles will vote for.
Most of these gullibles believe that they will be part of the club and that something other that shit won't rain down on them.
As George Carlin said you will never be part of the club, its a closed organisation that the gullibles will never be part of.

The Mound of Sound said...

Well, Anon, I came to that conclusion back in the Ignatieff days when I parted company with the LPC after several years of holding my nose and voting for them.

Because Pictures! said...

You have it exactly right!!

the salamander said...

.. History Lesson ..
Harper et al had to go, rancid rabid beef
Trudeau in the right time n place with great hair and name
Mulcair somehow shoulda woulda coulda erp..

If Harper Reformaglories had been an ad agency
they would have blown the account
and so they did.. Jason Kenney relocates
because he's simply unelectable as PM rancid rabid
but that's good in Alberta or Saskatchewan
boiled beef dontacha know.. sanitizes

Stevie Ray Novak Harper goes off to directorships
and a blood clot named Scheer replaces him
Rona suntans with rodeo boy on the megayacht
of the Mount Polley dam collapse CEO..
he gets no charges not even a fine?
What ? No cleanup ? And his subsidies were ?

Earth to Justin Trudeau
So there is zero natural consequence to probably
the greatest environmental disaster in Canadian history
aside from the tar sands or fracking ?

Its silly season kabuki theatre
Any sightings of Patrick Brown or Rick Dykstra or Christy Clark?
Or are they out there frolicking in their wealth on megayachts
and working on an even tan..

Lets start paying these folks 15 $ an hour ...
Its overpaying.. but what th hey...