Someone once told me that the hallmark of a good politician is whether they can have lunch with both inner-city elites and a crowd in a bar in Saskatoon. The message of genuine human connection in policy making is one that everyone can learn from.
While not many of us are actual politicians, those of us who wish to enact any sort of change in our communities should think like good politicians and search for the guiding thread that ties people together on the left and the right.
I don’t mean to argue for centrism or mass appeal here. What I wish to point out is that there is very little that differentiates the concerns between the average right- or left-leaning swing voter.
While there are some individuals with very entrenched political stances on both sides of the political spectrum, the voters that matter the most in a democracy are swing voters who tend to have a select number of issues that they would like addressed.
These are the people who can dictate election results, and that can be observed all over the world. In Canada, the previous election saw a dramatic illumination of the power of swing voters when political favour shifted sharply from the Conservatives to the Liberals over issues such as the carbon tax, tariffs and mass distaste towards former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The average swing voter is not loyal to a political party and thus holds the balance of power in elections. As Poli 1P98 with Professor Sykes taught me, it is known that the ridings that always vote for one political ideology often get the least investment, even when their preferred party is in government.
For Canadian politics, winning any more than a simple plurality in one riding is worse than useless, since it demonstrates that the party rhetoric is only further emboldening a base that was already going to vote for you anyway.
In general, this explains why the Liberal Party of Canada is known as the default ruling party. Their position and ideology allow them to shift right or left to match the current political climate and snatch the swing vote.
The factors that constitute the swing vote change with the political climate. During the previous election, these factors were overwhelmingly sovereignty, tariffs and the carbon tax, coupled with a desire for competent leadership.
Currently, the swing vote is most likely economic concerns, especially amongst the younger demographic, which is a growing voter segment, though their apathy weakens their political relevance.
However, in the previous election, we saw that young people overwhelmingly favoured the Conservatives, whereas the more politically active, older generation overwhelmingly favoured the Liberals.
People who are involved in politics shouldn’t ignore this indication. Younger voters — while apathetic — are a growing voting bloc but are also untapped. Concerns amongst younger Canadians are overwhelmingly economic.
Young Canadians know that they cannot independently afford homes and have families, since there is growing job security concerns with A.I. and digital privacy, coupled with the high cost of groceries and everyday living — all before tapping into the climate debate.
The interesting thing about these concerns is that they are not politically locked into an ideology. Both right-wing and left-wing ideologies have different ways of addressing these concerns. Some are better adept at addressing them, but a mixed approach might be better.
Regardless, when engaging with these groups, the best tactic is genuine empathy. People who are struggling in life don’t want to feel preached at, told that they’re marginally more privileged than their peers or mocked.
One of the struggles of the democratic party in the U.S. is the image of the Ivory Tower liberal. The ivory tower liberal is a caricature of a university educated elite who is out of touch with the reality of everyday people.
In essence, the politically involved and university educated are part of an elite class but through poor social presentation, needlessly complicated language and sometimes a real misunderstanding of their target demographic, destroy their own credibility.
The politically involved need to remember that language is the biggest carrier of misunderstanding. You can have great policy ideas or critiques, but poor explanation; talking down to others and loaded language doesn’t win in politics.
The most successful political movements speak at the level of the least educated person in the room. Take MAGA, for example: its success is in its digestibility. Zohran Mamdani’s New York City mayoral campaign was also digestible: easily to understand, actionable and simple.
Both of these political movements are ideologically opposed but share a lot in common in terms of strategy.
Wealth concentration has resulted in a small but incredibly powerful wealthy class, a tiny middle class and a massive working class. This idea is often referred to as the 99 per cent class, which originated during the 2011 Occupy movement.
The 99 per cent represents a diverse group of people from different backgrounds, and each group has its own specific struggles. Their overall struggles are not unique and can serve as a guiding thread for the left.
Political pundit and New York Times editor Ezra Klien speaks of “everything bagel liberalism” as a critique of the U.S. left wing. What I understand this to mean is that the left currently tries to address group issues separately, opposed to finding a uniting thread that would allow for simpler, more actionable policy that would have a mass effect.
This isn’t to downplay the importance of intersectionality in policy, but if the left poured more focus into economic issues — a stance that effects everyone to varying degrees — instead of social issues, they would be able to enact more change for more people.
The left needs to unite more of the 99 per cent under a common — most likely structural — platform that will reach swing voters.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t real class divides between all members of the nation, with the best example being the elite status of a university education, opposed to an unskilled labour job.
In the United States, the right wing has been successful in activating the 99 per cent on their side by finding the right majorities and the speakers to motivate the people.
This is because speakers like President Donald Trump are incredibly good at employing populist rhetoric: speaking the language of the average citizen — even though the ideology he is promoting isn’t for the benefit those he’s speaking to.
President Trump tapped into economic concerns and job security as a political tool, without any intention of implementing better policy. He also created an enemy out of immigrants to direct economic anger at, while bypassing the structural issues that are currently plaguing American society.
Mamdani, however, is a left-wing comparison who demonstrated that the left can also engage with the majority. Mamdani successfully tapped into economic concerns and job security in a way that made an enemy of establishment democrats like Andrew Cuomo.
One of the biggest issues with the left is that they are unwilling to make an enemy out of the system when they are aware that the system itself is the issue.
I won’t speak of right-wing politicians because right wing economics and neo-liberalism is the current system we’re following, and it’s unlikely that change would originate from the right.
Left wing politics lacks a status quo enemy. The right wing has social issues and immigrants as enemies, though the left has long exhausted its political bandwidth with social issues and currently cannot make independent arguments apart from debunking the right’s attacks.
Now it’s important to defend social progress politically and work to prevent regress, but in addition to defence, the left needs to form an offensive offer independent of right-wing ideology.
The left wing will continue to be incredibly weak if they continue to hold the status quo. But as most would point out, things aren’t going too well, especially for the youngest generation.
The right won’t offer a structural change since we are already following right wing ideology and neo-liberalism. The only place where change can come from is the left, yet it continues to struggle.
In many ways, this is due to establishment left-wingers and their drive to keep the status quo. For example, consider democrats in the U.S. — which aren’t actually left wing — and the vehement attacks on Mamdani.
For the politically interested to enact change, they must genuinely want to help their constituents. Change is being demanded, and the right is answering with detrimental policy. The status quo is not a winning formula for those who want to engage in political change.
Left wing policies — especially the less extreme kinds — are well suited to our political climate. In terms of Canadian politics, policies such as trust busting, government led housing initiatives and green energy projects would be very successful.
The right has an easier time connecting with the average swing voter and the left could learn a lot from that. There is a single guiding threat uniting nearly all groups in society. The left would do good to unite people in genuine conversation, from the bars in Saskatoon to the young adults in Toronto.