“There are essentially two ways to respond to Trudeau’s charm offensive.”
“The first, we can call “give him a chance”. On this account, the role of Prime Minister is that of a leader who will work better if we give him some breathing room. Folks with this perspective are exhorting us to not be so critical, enjoy the fact that we got rid of Harper, and wait and see what Mr. Trudeau has in store.”
“The second response sees Trudeau’s charm offensive as a window of opportunity for an agenda that has objective measures. Measures like “are we addressing climate change adequately to stop ecological collapse?” or “is our society become more equal and democratic or less?” The underlying assumption is that achieving those things is a matter of a battle between competing social forces — roughly oil companies and banks vs. people who want a just and sustainable future. Or the ruling class vs. the working class. We can call this response “eyes on the prize”.”
“Three objective measures provide clear yardsticks for evaluating progressive changes in Canada. One is “are the tar sands (and other extreme extraction like fracking) expanding, staying the same, or reducing their rate of extraction?” A second: “is corporate wealth and power –and the resulting level of inequality–expanding, staying the same, or reducing relative to the power of the people?” And perhaps most importantly: “do Indigenous nations have more or less ability to determine what happens on their territories?””
“Even if Trudeau is a path-breaking historical figure (and not, for example, the dangerously unprincipled legislator who voted for Bill C-51 and the “Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act” a few months ago), it’s hard to imagine that he can do it by himself. Justin Trudeau’s authentic progressive impulses will run into limits very quickly if he doesn’t get serious help. A more cynical take would say that the charm offensive will fade once people are paying less attention to politics, and then the real policies will be pushed through the house.”
“The point is that Justin Trudeau’s real intentions don’t matter. Regardless, people like John Manley, CEO of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, will come knocking, and expect to be able to dictate policy to the Liberals the way they did to at least the last three elected federal governments.”
“Unlike Harper, Trudeau cares what Canadians think of him. But he also has corporate interests breathing down his neck. What to do? Cooptation. I’m not old enough to remember, but the mostly-forgotten history of Canada’s almost-unbroken string of Liberal governments from ’63 to ’84 is one of highly effective cooptation of movement energy.”
“Cooptation takes a group of people that have a particular end in mind, and uses them to further a different end.”
“Movements accustomed to the unresponsive wall of Harper will have to rapidly adapt to playing the “what are we demanding” game with the Liberals. Unlike Conservatives, the Liberals will entice movement leaders with positions on blue ribbon panels, chairs of special commissions, funding for NGOs, and so on. The more momentum a movement has, the more the Liberals will try to entice leadership away or get it to accept something less.”
“It can be helpful to have people on the inside, but if the centre of the struggle moves there, it usually means things are winding down.”
“To people who have their eyes on the prize, every movement win short of complete victory is going to feel like cooptation. The key is to maintain momentum and set new goals, rather than criticizing the people who celebrate the current win or complaining that it falls short.”
“Once one accepts limits to one’s vision, it can be difficult to recover. Today, a whole generation of people with profound systemic critiques of international capitalism are sitting in NGO offices, doing the best they can within the limits of the system. Some of them still have the same critiques, but accept that they cannot act on them; some have simply changed their minds to align with their salaries. If movements grow as fast as they need to, a new generation will have to learn from the previous generation’s missteps — pronto.”